r 


THE  MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 


THE  MENACE  OF 
SPIRITUALISM 


BY 

ELLIOT  O'DONNELL 

Author  of  "Ghottly  Phenomena,"  "The  Haunted 

Man,"  "Twenty  Years'  Experience  as 

a  Ohoat  Hunter,"  etc. 


WITH  A  FOREWORD  BY 
FATHER  BERNARD  VAUGHAN,  S.J. 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPACT 


A II  Rights  Reserved 


DEDICATED 

BY  PERMISSION  TO 

His  GRACE 

THE 

DUKE  OF  NEWCASTLE 


NOTE 

In  presenting  this  volume  to  the  public  I 
desire  it  to  be  perfectly  clear  that  the  views 
in  it  apply  to  Spiritualism  only  (not  to  Psy- 
chical Research,  which,  inasmuch  as  it  touches 
on  the  investigation  of  spontaneous  manifes- 
tations in  haunted  houses,  etc.,  is,  in  my  opin- 
ion, justifiable),  and  do  not  detract  in  any 
way  from  the  attitude  I  have  hitherto  adopted 
in  my  writings  towards  spontaneous  ghostly 
phenomena. 

ELLIOT  O'DONNELL. 


FOREWORD 

ALTHOUGH  I  do  not  subscribe  to  all  the 
doctrine  and  teachings  expressed  between 
the  covers  of  this  brochure,  yet  do  I  gladly 
recommend  it  to  the  public  as  an  exposition 
of  the  menace  of  Spiritualism  in  our  midst. 
The  public  has  plenty  of  temptations  to  en- 
counter on  the  road  of  life  without  its  being 
enticed  and  drawn  into  these  sideshows 
where  freaks,  frauds,  and  fiends  may  rob 
them  not  only  of  their  money,  but,  perhaps, 
even  leave  them  stripped  of  their  physical 
outfit  and  of  their  moral  attributes. 

Naturally  I  do  not  place  all  under  the  same 
damnation  because  I  can  but  judge  of  the 
ruin  wrought  through  Spiritualism  by  the 
cases  that  have  come  under  my  own  obser- 
vation. But  you  may  depend  upon  it  that 
the  Catholic  Church  would  not  forbid  her 
children  to  have  anything  at  all  to  do  with 
this  insidious  form  of  necromancy  unless  she 
was  satisfied  that  harm  only  and  no  good 
comes  out  of  it.  Her  experience  of  Spirit- 


x  FOREWORD 

ualism  covers  nearly  two  thousand  years,  and 
she  seems  to  regard  it,  not  as  a  means  of  get- 
ting into  communion  with  saints,  but  as  a 
snare  trapping  you  into  communion  with 
devils. 

I  have,  on  not  a  few  occasions,  been 
brought  into  contact  with  both  men  and 
women  who  have  been  caught,  like  moths  in  a 
candle-flame,  by  these  false  flashlights,  and 
lured  on  to  quicksands  from  which  there  was 
110  saving  them.  When  lost  they  shout  out 
that  they  are  saved. 

It  looks  as  if  the  penalty  of  trying  to  force 
the  hand  of  God,  and  of  lifting  the  veil  to 
communicate  with  the  Great  Beyond  was 
total  loss  of  that  childlike  and  clinging  faith 
which  is  the  priceless  inheritance  of  the  sons 
of  God — "  Unless  you  become  as  a  little 
child." 

Up  to  date  in  rare  cases  only  have  I  been 
able  to  persuade  necromancers  to  shake  off 
Spiritistic  practices  and  to  return  once  more 
to  the  Church  of  their  childhood.  They  tell 
you  that  they  have  actually  seen,  and  that  it 
is  more  blessed  to  have  seen  than  to  believe. 
When  their  choice  lies  between  Christianity 
and  Necromancy  they  choose  the  latter. 


FOREWORD  xi 

To  some  of  us  who  have  studied  Spirit- 
ualism in  many  of  its  phases,  the  wonder  is 
that  any  persons,  with  common  sense  and  ap- 
preciation of  life's  values,  can  allow  them- 
selves to  be  sucked  into  such  a  vortex. 

Firstly,  let  me  remind  you  that  no  one  at- 
tending a  seance  in  which  spirits  from  the 
vast  deep  make  themselves  heard  or  seen 
can  prove  that  their  spirit  visitants  are  the 
creatures  they  claim  to  be.  How  can  any  one 
disprove  them  to  be  satanic  spirits?  You 
may  be  sure  that  evil  spirits  can  quite  as 
cleverly  personate  the  dead  as  music-hall  ar- 
tists do  the  living. 

Secondly,  let  me  ask  you,  what  have  spirits, 
after  thousands  of  years  practice,  revealed 
to  mankind  calculated  to  be  of  any  practical 
service  to  humanity?  As  yet  they  have  not 
even  solved  the  problem  as  to  what  is  a  sar- 
dine, or  what  a  new-laid  egg. 

There  is  a  great  deal  to  say  against 
Spiritism,  but  not  much  that  I  know  of  for 
it.  But  I  shall  be  reminded  that  it  has  dis- 
proved the  doctrine  for  materialism  and 
proved  the  immortality  of  man.  Not  so;  it 
may  have  only  proved  the  immortality  of  de- 
mons. It  is  a  queer  blend  of  immortality  and 


xii  FOREWORD 

infidelity.  If  the  spirits,  who  speak  through 
mediums,  live,  on  the  other  side,  the  lives 
they  describe,  then  the  other  side  ought  to 
be  the  soul's  probation  for  this — not  this  for 
that. 

My  advice  to  all  readers  of  this  spirited  ex- 
posure of  Spiritualism  is  to  shun  it  as  they 
would  cocaine.  In  neither  drug  is  to  be  dis- 
covered the  Will  of  God,  which  is  man's  end 
in  life,  but  in  both  may  be  found  ruin  of 
body  and  loss  of  soul.  This  very  morn- 
ing I  heard  of  a  girl,  who,  being  told  in  a 
seance  by  her  deceased  lover  that  he  would 
not  live  on  the  other  side  without  her, 
drowned  herself  to  join  him,  not,  I  fancy,  in 
heaven — "Notum  fac  mihi,  Domine,  finem 
meum." 

BEBNABD  VAUGHAN,  S.J. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

FOREWORD ix 

CHAPTER 

I    ' '  SPIRITUALISM  ' ' — WHAT  is  IT  ?    ...      1 

II    How  SPIRITUALISM  TRIES  TO  DISTORT  THE 

OLD  TESTAMENT 13 

III  SPIRITUALISM  AND  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  .     33 

IV  SPIRITUALISM  AND  THE  CHURCHES  ...     58 

V    THE  PHENOMENAL  SIDE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

AND  ITS  EFFECT  ON  THE  HEALTH    .     .     99 

VI    THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD  OF  ALL  KINDS  AT 

SEANCES  137 


THE  MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 


THE  MENACE  OF 
SPIRITUALISM 

CHAPTER  I 

"SPIRITUALISM" — WHAT  is  IT? 

SPIRITUALISM  !  What  does  it  all  mean? 
Can  it  do  us  any  good?  Has  it  really  come 
to  stay? 

These  are  the  questions  the  ordinary  man 
and  woman,  and  the  British  public  in  general, 
are  now  beginning  to  ask  in  downright  earn- 
est. For  a  long  time  what  is  known  as  Spirit- 
ualism flourished  in  comparative  obscurity. 
Apart  from  its  own  particular  adherents, 
and  those  who,  existent  in  every  age,  make  a 
point  of  inquiring  into  all  kinds  of  cults  and 
philosophies,  there  were  few  who  took  even 
the  remotest  interest  in  it.  The  vast  major- 
ity, perhaps,  had  never  even  heard  of  it ;  and 
to  the  bulk,  at  least,  of  the  middle  classes,  like 

Psychical  Research,  it  was   either  a  mere 

i 


2  MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

term,  or  it  was  classified  in  the  same  category 
as  ghosts  and  hobgoblins,  and  meant  nothing 
to  them.  Then  came  the  Great  War,  and 
once  again  the  air  filled  with  the  cries  and 
lamentations  of  the  bereaved;  the  cries  of 
mothers  mourning  for  their  sons,  the  cries  of 
wives  sorrowing  for  their  husbands.  It  was 
merely  a  repetition  of  the  same  old  story, 
slaughter  and  desolation,  and,  in  the  words 
of  the  prophet,  "Rachel  weeping  for  her 
children,  because  they  were  not";  but  it  was 
a  repetition  which  has  proved  that  the  world, 
despite  its  boastful  pretensions  to  an  en- 
lightened Christianity  and  civilization,  has 
not  advanced  very  far  along  the  path  of 
gentleness  and  toleration;  has  not,  as  yet, 
set  its  foot  upon  the  one  and  only  path  of 
real  progress.  And,  as  in  all  times  of  exces- 
sive sorrow  and  bereavement,  so  now, 
"Rachel  weeping  for  her  children,  refused  to 
be  comforted,"  those  who  were  hit  hard  and 
felt  acutely  the  pangs  of  the  empty  chair  and 
missing  form  at  the  family  table,  turned  to 
channels  other  than  mere  human  agency  for 
consolation.  Some,  indeed,  there  were  who, 
not  entirely  ruled  and  regulated  by  the  rush, 
and  tear,  and  helter-skelter  of  passing  events, 


"SPIRITUALISM"— WHAT  IS  IT?        3 

found  what  they  sought  in  prayer,  in  the  quiet 
old-time  faith  that  had  sufficed  their  fore- 
fathers; but  the  remainder,  those  whose 
minds  responded  to  the  twentieth  century's 
predominating  cry  for  constantly  increasing 
speed,  and  whose  thoughts  were  tuned  to 
keep  pace  with  telephones  and  wireless,  de- 
manded instant  demonstration.  All  the 
Church  could  do  was  to  tell  them  to  wait,  to 
wait  and  hope,  that  Christ's  promise  was  one 
of  revelation;  but  of  a  revelation  they  must 
not  precipitate,  must  not  expect  till  the  hour 
of  their  own  dissolution  was  at  hand.  But 
neither  waiting  nor  watching  appeals  to  the 
pioneers  and  supporters  of  twentieth-century 
hurry  and  dispatch.  Life  may  be  long;  to 
the  young  an  eternity,  and  no  one  can  be  ex- 
pected to  wait  that  length  of  time  for  an  as- 
surance on  a  question  that  concerns  him  in- 
timately. Is  there  another  life  or  not? 
There  must  be  no  dallying,  no  equivocating. 
Something  quick  and  decisive  is  asked  for; 
something*  quick  and  decisive  must  be  given. 
Proof — positive,  immediate,  unequivocal 
proof. 

That  was  the  cry  of  this  section  of  the  dis- 
tressed, a  section  in  the  main  composed  of 


4  MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

the  upper  and  middle  classes;  those  who  are 
known  as  the  quite  common  people  shouldered 
their  burdens  more  stoically.  The  toiling 
poor  are  accustomed  to  dallying — waiting 
and  hoping  form  part  of  their  daily  curric- 
ulum. However,  the  cry  found  response. 
Just  as  the  wailing  of  the  infant  or  the  neigh- 
ing of  the  horse  on  the  steppes  so  often  sum- 
mons wolves,  and  the  lowing  of  the  oxen  in 
the  jungle  apparently  calls  into  being  jackals 
and  tigers,  so  the  frantic  demands  of  these 
unhappy  parents  and  widows  conjured  up 
those  styling  themselves  mediums — spiritual- 
ists who,  for  fees  (in  most  cases  consider- 
able ones),  declared  their  ability  to  provide 
instantaneous  and  definite  proofs  of  another 
life,  by  evoking  and  conversing  with  the 
spirits  of  the  dead. 

Their  offers  were  hungrily  accepted. 
Crowds  flocked  to  their  doors,  and  all  the 
more  readily  and  eagerly,  since  their  methods 
were  obviously  in  accordance  with  the  views 
of  such  men  as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Sir  W.  F. 
Barrett  and  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  who 
through  their  writing  chiefly,  had  given  the 
cause  of  Spiritualism,  as  a  whole,  an  immense 
impetus. 


"SPIRITUALISM"— WHAT  IS  IT?        5 

Soon,  going  to  a  medium,  like  consulting 
the  oracles  of  old,  became  a  fashion;  it  af- 
forded novelty  and  excitement,  and  appealed 
especially  to  the  upper  and  middle  classes, 
because  it  was  too  costly  a  form  of  entertain- 
ment ever  to  be  shared  by  their  poorer 
brethren.  Those  who  had  not  lost  relatives 
in  the  war,  as  well  as  the  bereaved,  became 
bitten  with  the  craze  for  Spiritualism;  the 
papers  took  it  up ;  the  magazines  encouraged 
it ;  and  now,  bidding  fair  to  rival  some  of  the 
periodical  madnesses  of  old,  it  has  swept, 
with  an  epidemic-like  force  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  Great  Britain. 

Yet  it  has  apparently  given  satisfaction 
only  to  the  few;  the  masses  are  still  hope- 
lessly in  the  cold,  still  hopelessly  unconvinced, 
still  hopelessly  inquiring. 

Spiritualism!  "What  does  it  all  mean? 
Can  it  do  us  any  real  good?  Has  it  actually 
come  to  stay? 

Now,  it  is  not  very  easy  to  affix  any  specific 
creed  to  Spiritualism,  since  it  throws  open  its 
doors  to  people  of  varying  and  divergent 
ideas  and  beliefs,  and  has  no  very  distinct 
dogmas  of  its  own.  However,  it  professes 
absolute  confidence  in  the  ability  of  living 


6  MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

man  to  bring,  at  will,  the  spirit  world  within 
the  close  range  of  his  senses,  and  to  get  into 
actual  and  immediate  contact  with  it;  and  it 
is  on  this  belief  alone  that  the  whole  fabric 
of  Spiritualism  appears  to  be  based.  To 
substantiate  this  statement  I  need  only  quote 
at  random  from  the  definitions  of  Spiritual- 
ism by  avowed  disciples  of  the  creed. 

Dr.  J.  M.  Peebles  in  his  work  "What  is 
Spiritualism,"  published  1903,  says  (p.  5), 
"  Spiritualism  is  the  philosophy  of  life  and 
the  direct  antithesis  of  materialization. 
Spiritualism  does  not  create  truth,  but  it  is  a 
living  witness  to  the  truth  of  a  future  exist- 
ence. It  reveals  it ;  it  demonstrates,  describ- 
ing its  inhabitants,  their  occupations,  etc." 

Whilst  Leon  Denis  in  his  book  "  Christi- 
anity and  Spiritualism,"  translated  from  the 
French  by  Helen  Draper  Speakman  (pub- 
lished by  Eider  &  Sons),  says  on  page  28: 
"We  shall  thus  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that 
His  (referring  to  Christ's)  doctrine  and  that 
of  the  spirits  are  identical,  that  Spiritualism 
is  simply  the  return  to  primitive  Christian- 
ity under  more  definite  form,  and  we  shall  do 
so  with  an  imposing  train  of  experimental 
proofs  which  will  render  impossible  the  re- 


"SPIRITUALISM"— WHAT  IS  IT?        7 

newed   misrepresentation    of    the    ideas    of 
Christ." 

These  "experimental  proofs"  can,  I  ven- 
ture to  think,  only  refer  to  experiments  with 
spirits,  presumably  those  of  the  dead,  and 
since  reference  to  this  same  source  of  con- 
viction will  be  found  in  most,  if  not,  indeed, 
all  the  definitions  of  Spiritualism  by  Spirit- 
ualists, I  can  only  again  emphasize  my  state- 
ment that  the  real  basis  of  Spiritualism,  the 
stone  on  which  the  whole  structure  pivots,  is 
a  positive  confidence  in  the  ability  of  man, 
living,  breathing  man — man  on  and  belong- 
ing to  this  material  plane,  to  conjure  up  the 
denizens  of  the  spiritual  world,  to  see,  to 
touch,  to  converse  with  them  at  will,  and  to 
keep  them  actively  employed  at  his  beck  and 
call,  preparing  all  kinds  of  phenomena  for  the 
gratification  of  his  own  peculiar  whims  and 
pleasures.  Once  prove  this  belief  to  be  based 
on  a  no  more  substantial  foundation  than  in- 
flated fancy,  hallucinations,  delusions,  gross 
exaggeration  and  barefaced  trickery,  and  the 
whole  edifice  of  Spiritualism  would  at  once 
break  in  pieces  and  crumble  away  into  mere 
nothingness.  So  far,  however,  in  spite  of  the 
countless  and  more  than  partially  successful 


8  MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

efforts  that  are  continually  being  made  to  ob- 
tain this  proof,  something  every  now  and 
then  crops  up  to  which  skepticism  and  ma- 
terialism can  offer  no  very  convincing  ex- 
planation ;  and  this  something  has  invariably 
succeeded  in  not  merely  keeping  Spiritualism 
from  being  snuffed  out  altogether,  but  oc- 
casionally— as  is  happening  at  the  present 
moment — in  imparting  to  it  a  life  and  a  luster 
that  arouses  grave  apprehensions  in  the 
minds  of  the  more  thoughtful  and  rational  of 
us,  and  that  would  arouse  even  graver  ones, 
did  we  not,  deriving  our  inspirations  from 
similar  happenings  in  the  past,  believe  such 
an  outburst  to  be  merely  spasmodic. 

But  more  of  this  anon.  To  revert  to  the  def- 
inition of  Spiritualism.  I  have  endeavored 
to  show  that  Spiritualism  as  a  creed — if  one 
may  so  designate  it — relies  mainly  on  one 
distinguishing  principle,  and  that,  apart 
from  this  single  outstanding  feature,  it  de- 
rives its  coloring,  chiefly,  from  the  country  in 
which  it  happens  to  be  located.  In  India,  for 
example,  its  teachings  are  a  reflection  of  The- 
osophy  and  confused  Paganism;  whilst  in 
England  and  America  the  tenets  it  advances 
largely  take  their  color  from  a  contorted  and 


"SPIRITUALISM"— WHAT  IS  IT?       9 

perverted  rendering  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments.  It  is  this  infusion  of  so  many 
diverse  views  and  credulities  into  Spiritual- 
ism that  has  led  some  people  to  attribute  to 
it  a  much  larger  individual  doctrine  and 
literature  than  that  to  which  it  is  really  en- 
titled; and  to  regard  it  as  having  two  dis- 
tinct branches,  namely  the  doctrinal  and  the 
phenomena,  though  the  two  are,  in  reality,  so 
closely  related  to  one  another  that  any  ab- 
solute separation  is  impossible.  However, 
for  the  purpose  of  criticism,  I  think  it  is  well 
to  deal  with  these  two  so-called  branches 
separately. 

In  the  space  allotted  me  I  can  do  little 
more  than  merely  allude  to  Spiritualism  in 
its  relation  to  Theosophy  and  other  oriental 
schools  of  religious  philosophy.  I  believe 
there  is  nothing  in  the  teachings  of  Theos- 
ophy, which  is  about  as  heterogeneous  a 
jumble  of  tenets  and  ideas  as  it  is  possible 
to  conceive,  i.  e.,  a  jumble  of  gnosticism, 
taken  from  three  distinct  schools,  Neopla- 
tonism,  Hermeticism,  Rosicrucianism,  Brah- 
manism,  Zoroastrianism,  Roman,  Greek 
and  Egyptian  mythology,  and  countless 
other  mythologies — to  contradict  the  main 


10         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

principle  of  Spiritualism;  on  the  contrary, 
as  the  majority  of  those  professing  Theoso- 
phy  most  certainly  countenance,  in  a  more 
or  less  restricted  sense,  and,  under  somewhat 
elastic  conditions,  practice  Spiritualism,  one 
may  reasonably  conclude  that  it  is  not  only 
reconcilable  with  Theosophy,  but  that  it  may 
even  be  said  to  come  within  its  tenets  and, 
possibly,  to  have  been  in  the  beginning  merely 
an  offshoot  from  it.  At  the  same  time  I  be- 
lieve I  am  right  in  saying  that  there  is  a 
certain  phase  of  Spiritualism  to  which  a 
large  number  of  Theosophiots  object,  a  phase 
which  is  termed  Spiritism,  and  which  signifies 
the  resorting  of  the  Spiritual-phenomena 
side  of  Spiritualism  for  merely  idle  and 
speculative  purposes. 

Before  passing  on  to  the  main  subject  of 
my  criticism — Spiritualism  in  England — I 
should  like  to  remark  that  it  was  rather  un- 
fortunate for  the  cause  of  Spiritualism  and 
Theosophy  alike,  that  one  of  the  founders 
of  the  Modern  School  of  Theosophy  in  the 
East,  Helen  Petrovna  Blavatsky,  better 
known  as  H.  P.  B.,  after  laying  claim  to  such 
an  extraordinary  development  of  the  so-called 
psychic  faculty  that  she  was  brought  into 


"SPIRITUALISM"— WHAT  IS  IT?      11 

touch  and,  one  might  say,  was  on  terms  of 
actual  intimacy  with  entities  on  the  very  high- 
est spiritual  planes  (she  is  still  regarded  by 
the  theosophical  sages  as  an  initiated  disci- 
ple of  the  Mahatma,  known  as  Morya,  and 
included  by  them  in  the  same  category  as 
Plato,  Pythagoras,  and  other  great  moral 
expounders  of  the  past),  should  eventually 
have  been  detected  in  an  act  or  acts  of 
common  or  garden  fraud  whilst  producing 
some  of  her  alleged  spiritual  phenomena. 
Had  H.  P.  B.  been  a  person  of  less  exalted 
position  her  misdeeds  might  not  have  given 
rise  to  quite  so  much  criticism;  but  being 
almost  akin  to  a  Mahatma  her  exposure  not 
unnaturally  led  cynics  to  suggest  that  a  cult 
founded  by  a  person  whose  practices  were 
far  from  being  of  a  godlike  nature,  could 
be  neither  very  sound  nor  very  desirable. 
Besides,  these  cynics  argued,  the  psychic 
properties  to  which  the  majority  of  her 
followers  laid  claim,  since  they  obviously 
did  not  enable  their  owners  to  see  beneath 
the  surface,  were  of  little  practical  use 
to  them;  and  spirit  guides,  if  they  cannot 
warn  us  of  danger  and  put  us  on  our  guard 
against  people  likely  to  abuse  our  confidence, 


12         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

cannot  be  reckoned  of  any  great  worth  or 
value. 

Furthermore,  the  exposure  of  H.  P.  B.  led 
outsiders  to  wonder  whether  the  same  in- 
fluences, spiritual  or  otherwise,  to  which  she 
was  subject,  might  not,  also,  be  inspiring 
some  of  her  adherents;  whether,  indeed,  in 
the  ranks  of  the  more  prominent  and  arro- 
gant members  of  the  cults  of  Theosophy  and 
Spiritualism — for  both  came  under  her  wing 
— there  might  not  be  others  equally  daring, 
equally  plausible  and  equally  unscrupulous, 
who,  taking  advantage  of  the  more  ignorant, 
trustful  and  gullible  members  of  the  frater- 
nities, were  laughing  up  their  sleeves  and, 
at  the  same  time,  fattening.  As,  however, 
I  am  reserving  my  comments  on  Spirit- 
ualism in  India  for  another  occasion,  I  will 
pass  on  now  to  the  doctrinal  branch  of 
Spiritualism  in  England. 


CHAPTER  II 

HOW   SPIRITUALISM   TKIES   TO   DISTORT   THE 
OLD   TESTAMENT 

THE  center  of  Spiritualism,  as  is  the  case 
with  the  centers  of  most  creeds  and  cults 
in  this  country,  is  in  London,  and  the  bulk 
of  the  Spiritualists  in  London  profess  an 
adulterated  type  of  Christianity. 

"  Spiritualists,  like  the  Primitive 
Churches,"  says  Dr.  J.  M.  Peebles,  "believe 
in  God  the  Father, ' ' l  and  he  goes  on  to  say : 
"Spiritualism  is  of  God,"  adding  that  "the 
corner  stone,  the  foundation  pillar  of  Spirit- 
ualism, is  spirit,  and  God  is  Spirit. ' ' 2  He 
seems  to  forget,  however,  that  there  are  vari- 
ous kinds  of  spirits,  that  all  are  not  of 
necessity  good,  and  that  the  spirit  that  has 
inspired  Spiritualism  may  belong  to  a  very 

i"What   is   Spiritualism?"    (p.   9).     By  J.   M.  Peebles, 
M.D.,  M.A.     Published  by  Peebles  Institute.     Printed  1903. 
2  Same  work,  pp.  10-11. 

13 


14         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

different  category  from  that  which  constitutes 
God. 

Indeed,  if  one  might  form  an  opinion  as 
to  what  constitutes  the  corner  stone  of 
Spiritualism,  from  the  type  of  Spiritualists 
one  meets  at  seances,  one  might  affirm  that 
if  spirit  at  all,  that  spirit  is  astonishingly 
worldly,  to  a  large  extent  commercial,  dis- 
tinctly grotesque  and  bizarre,  and  conse- 
quently not  at  all  in  accordance  with  any- 
thing the  more  thoughtful  of  us  outside  the 
ranks  of  Spiritualism  would  ascribe  to  the 
highest  Spiritual  Plane,  least  of  all  to  a  be- 
ing of  such  infinite  wisdom  and  virtue  as 
God.  However,  to  continue,  one  need  not 
be  surprised,  perhaps,  that  the  propounders 
of  Spiritualism — since  it  owes,  in  no  small 
measure,  its  existence  to  an  atmosphere  of 
mysticism  the  ages  have  built  round  it- 
should  profess  to  see  in  the  Scriptures  mys- 
teries and  occult  evidences  far  too  profound 
to  catch  the  eye  of  the  more  vulgar  and  less 
initiated  materialist. 

Mr.  John  Page  Hopps,  in  a  pamphlet  en- 
titled "Spiritualism  in  the  Old  Testament," 
goes  so  far  as  to  describe  the  whole  of  the 


DISTORTS  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      15 

Old  Testament  as  "a  sealed  book,"  full  of 
spirit  appearances,  spirit  lights,  spirit 
sounds,  trance  speaking  and  symbolism,  at 
the  same  time  he  assures  us  that  all  such 
happenings  are  perfectly  familiar  to  the 
modern  Spiritualist.  This  same  writer,  like 
most  Spiritualists,  pitches  upon  the  book  of 
Ezekiel  as  being  specially  psychic,  and  sub- 
jects not  only  the  prophet,  but  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  whom  the  prophet  attributes  his 
powers,  to  a  severe  criticism.  We  are  told, 
for  example,  that  although  Ezekiel  was  a 
medium,  possessing  the  faculties  both  of 
clairvoyance  and  clairaudience,  he  was  open 
to  all  kinds  of  spirit  influences,  good,  bad 
and  indifferent,  and  that  it  is  simply  foolish 
to  consider  all  his  inspirations  as  emanating 
from  God.  Mr.  Hopps  even  suggests  that 
it  is  very  doubtful,  according  to  the  true 
(i.  e.,  the  psychic)  interpretation  of  Ezekiel, 
if  the  Jehovah,  who  is  alluded  to  as  "the 
Lord,"  was,  in  reality,  God  Almighty;  in 
fact  he  infers  that  the  Jehovah  of  the  Jews 
was  merely  a  finite  spirit — or  band  of  spirits 
— of  very  varying  power,  who  had  taken  the 
Hebrew  race  under  his  or  their  guardian- 


16         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

ship  and  found  them  very  much  of  a  hand- 
ful. In  this  latter  respect,  perhaps,  some 
of  us  will  agree  with  him. 

Mr.  Hopps,  like  most  so-called  author- 
ities on  Spiritualism  and  Psychism,  is 
arrogant,  and,  as  I  shall  endeavor  to  show 
later,  highly  fanciful  and  imaginative. 
That  Ezekiel  possessed  very  peculiar  spirit- 
ual powers  is,  of  course,  clearly  apparent; 
had  he  not  possessed  them  he  would  not  have 
been  able  to  prophesy  and  predict;  but  it  is 
equally  apparent  that  he  was  no  medium  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  since,  judg- 
ing from  the  glimpses  we  g;et  of  his  character 
and  mentality  in  the  Scriptures,  he  must  have 
been  a  man  of  no  mean  intellectual  and  states- 
manlike qualities,  and,  consequently,  the  very 
antithesis  of  the  present-day  medium,  who 
is,  as  a  rule,  not  only  unintellectual  and  ill- 
informed,  but  occasionally  both  sensuous 
and  sordid.  Moreover,  Ezekiel 's  visions, 
inasmuch  as  they  possessed  unquestionable 
significance  for  his  contemporaries — espe- 
cially for  his  countrymen  to  whom,  in  all  prob- 
ability, they  were  by  no  means  wholly  enig- 
matical, might  be  said  to  have  been  of  great 
national  importance  and  interest.  Can  any 


DISTORTS  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      17 

one  say  the  same  of  the  visions  and  messages 
purporting  to  come  through  Spiritualistic 
mediums  to-day?  Far  from  being  either 
grand,  or  ennobling,  or  even  instructive, 
these  messages  are,  without  exception,  tri- 
fling, unedifying,  and  footling,1  and  if,  as  Mr. 
Hopps  suggests,  not  all  of  Ezekiel's  visions 
emanated  from  the  highest  spiritual  plane, 
though  in  this  I  disagree  with  him,  it  is  per- 
fectly certain  that  very  few  of  the  visions  of 
a  modern  medium  emanate  from  any  plane 
save  the  lowest.  But  to  proceed,  no  matter 
whether  he  possesses  the  psychic  faculty  or 
not,  the  ordinary  Spiritualist  invariably  ex- 
'hibits  a  tendency  to  imagine  and  invent. 
Mr.  Hopps,  for  instance,  after  again  trying 
to  convince  us  that  Ezekiel  held  regular 
seances  after  the  nature  of  those  held  by 
Spiritualists  to-day,  tries  to  establish  his 
case  by  asserting  that  the  phrase,  "I  sat  in 
mine  house  and  the  elders  of  Judah  sat  be- 
fore me"  (Ezekiel  viii.  1),  refers  to  an  or- 
dinary Spiritualistic  seance,  something  in  the 
nature  of  modern  table-turning  or  trance 

i  No  better  instance  of  this  can  be  afforded  than  the  so- 
called  spirit  communications  recorded  in  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's 
"Raymond"  (published  by  Methuen  &  Co.,  1916). 


18         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

mediumship ;  and  he  subsequently  states 
that  the  whole  book  of  Ezekiel  consists  of 
a  collection  of  records  of  similar  sittings. 
He  forgets,  however,  to  add  that  whereas 
Ezekiel  was  never,  as  far  as  these  verses 
show,  convicted  of  falsehood  and  barefaced 
trickery,  the  majority  of  present-day  medi- 
ums have  been  proved  guilty  of  both;  so 
that  between  Ezekiel  and  those  whom  Mr. 
Hopps  designates  his  successors,  there  is, 
after  all,  a  very  remarkable  difference,  a 
difference  upon  which  I  will  expatiate  later 
on. 

As  one  would  suppose,  Ezekiel  is  by  no 
means  the  only  prophet  or  patriarch  whose 
dignity  is  assailed  by  Spiritualists.  Isaiah 
is  similarly  likened  to  a  modern  clairvoyant, 
while  the  phrase  "and  it  shall  come  to  pass, 
as  soon  as  I  am  gone  from  thee,  that  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  shall  carry  thee  whither 
I  know  not"  (1  Kings  xviii.  12),  is  by  some 
miraculous  system  of  distortion,  worthy  of 
the  most  ingenious  species  of  rack  ever  in- 
vented, made  to  suggest  levitation,  i.  e.,  that 
Elijah  was  to  be  lifted  off  the  ground  after 
the  manner  of  a  table  at  a  twentieth-century 
Spiritualistic  seance.  Now  I  have  seen  many 


DISTORTS  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      19 

tables  slightly  raised  from  the  floor  at 
seances,  and  it  has  always  appeared  to  me 
— as  well  as  to  others  present — that  such 
levitation  was  not  altogether  incompatible 
with  very  materialistic  trickery,  which  might 
very  well  have  been  performed  by  one  of  the 
sitters  without  any  spirit  intervention  what- 
soever. Indeed,  I  feel  quite  certain  that 
there  is  nothing  in  this  kind  of  levitation 
that  could  not  be  easily  enacted  by  a  con- 
juror, not  necessarily  as  skillful  as  Messrs. 
Maskelyne  and  Devant. 

I  have,  however,  never  yet  seen,  at  any 
seance  or  elsewhere,  a  case  of  complete 
spiriting  away,  such  as  Obadiah  prophesied 
would  happen  to  Elijah,  and  which  event- 
ually did  happen.  (2  Kings  ii.  11.)  Per- 
haps some  of  our  Spiritualistic  friends  will 
affirm  such  feats  have  actually  come  within 
their  experience,  and  will  be  able  to  name 
the  mediums  who  have  accomplished  them. 
Indeed,  they  should  be  able  to  do  so,  since 
they  declare  Elijah  was  simply  a  highly  de- 
veloped psychic,  like  the  Fox  Sisters, 
H.  P.  B.,  or  Eusapia  Palladino  (whose  exits 
from  this  material  plane  were  not,  I  believe, 
accomplished  in  celestial  chariots,  an  omis- 


20         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

sion  on  the  part  of  Jehovah  for  which  be- 
lievers in  these  notorious  mediums  will  no 
doubt  be  able  to  proffer  some  kind  of  apology 
or  explanation).  Spiritualism,  of  course, 
claims  Abraham,  also,  as  one  of  its  disciples, 
and  his  converse  with  angels  is  reckoned  in 
the  same  category  as  the  * '  spirit  materializa- 
tions" which  are  taking  place  to-day. 

"  Patriarchs,  prophets  and  seers  in  Abra- 
ham's and  Isaiah's  time  conversed  with 
spirits  and  angels  according  to  the  Scrip- 
tures," Dr.  Peebles  writes,1  "and  why 
should  not  we?  Neither  God  nor  His  laws 
have  changed."  Very  possibly  not,  Dr. 
Peebles,  but  man  apparently  has,  for  seldom 
do  we  see  nowadays  in  any  class  or  profes- 
sion the  dignity  and  grandeur  of  character 
that  we  find  in  Moses,  Samuel,  Isaiah  and 
other  of  the  Hebrew  leaders  and  prophets, 
and  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  great  in- 
deed would  be  our  disappointment  were  we 
to  hope  to  find  men  possessing  these  char- 
acteristics in  the  ranks  of  modern  medium- 
ship. 

Another  point  to  bear  in  mind,  when  con- 

i"What   is    Spiritualism?"    (pp.    5-6).    J.    M.    Peebles, 
M.D.,  M.A. 


DISTORTS  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      21 

fronted  with  these  impious  comparisons,  is 
that  the  Divine  visitations  and  manifesta- 
tions in  the  Old  Testament  were  never  re- 
sorted to,  saving  on  very  particular  and 
momentous  occasions,  and  for  some  very 
specific  and  rational  purpose,  as,  for  exam- 
ple, when  God  spoke  to  the  child  Samuel  to 
warn  him  of  the  impending  fate  of  Eli's 
house,  and  to  Moses,  from  the  burning  bush, 
to  command  him  to  deliver  the  children  of 
Israel  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Egyptians. 
It  is  obviously  quite  otherwise  with  regard 
to  modern  mediumship,  which  is  resorted  to 
on  every  possible  occasion,  and  often  on  the 
most  trivial  and  ridiculous  pretext.  Hence, 
perhaps,  it  is  small  wonder  that  the  revela- 
tions made  by  " spirit  guides"  or  " controls" 
are  invariably  silly,  and  occasionally  obscene 
and  even  blasphemous;  and  small  wonder, 
too,  that  these  spirits,  far  from  telling  us 
anything  new,  or  instructive,  or  elevating, 
merely  convey  the  impression  that  the  spirit 
world  from  which  they  hail  must  be  a  strange 
mixture  of  a  public  elementary  schoolroom, 
a  pot-house  bar  and  a  lunatic  asylum,  and 
that  we  should  be  well  advised  to  cling  to  this 
material  life  for  as  long  a  time  as  possible. 


22         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

Spiritualists  will  of  course  assert  that  what 
1  have  just  alluded  to  is  Spiritism,  and  not 
Spiritualism,  that  Spiritism  naturally  puts 
one  in  touch  with  the  denizens  of  the  lowest 
spirit  planes,  but  that  Spiritualism  enables 
its  followers  to  see  visions  and  witness 
manifestations  of  the  same  nature  as  were 
seen  and  witnessed  by  Moses,  Isaiah,  and 
other  Biblical  characters  of  the  same  degree 
of  piety.  My  reply  to  this  is  that  it  is  really 
a  distinction  with  very  little  difference,  that 
the  seance  of  the  Spiritualist  generally  owes 
its  origin  to  much  the  same  motives  as  the 
seance  of  the  Spiritist,  and  that,  at  all  events, 
there  is  nothing  in  the  characters  of  even 
the  best  of  the  Spiritualists  and  Spiritists, 
any  more  than  there  is  in  the  characters  of 
any  of  us  mere  laymen  and  outsiders — to 
warrant  visitations  and — if  one  likes  to  call 
them  so — phenomena — from  such  celestial 
sources  as  those  specified  in  Holy  Writ. 
As  I  have  already  stated,  Abrahams  and 
Isaiahs  no  longer  exist,  and,  in  comparison, 
the  best  of  us  to-day  are  very  ordinary,  very 
mediocre. 

Another  point  that  appeals  to  me  in  the 
argument  that  the  phenomena  claimed  by 


DISTORTS  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      23 

Spiritualists  as  emanating  from  the  same 
spirit  sources  as  those  mentioned  in  the 
Bible,  cannot  be  genuine,  is  that  those  who 
witness  the  phenomena  do  not  experience 
even  the  slightest  sensation  of  fear.  Now 
most  of  us,  I  think,  believe  in  spirits  that 
appear  spontaneously,  that  is  to  say,  with- 
out the  connivance  of  a  medium  or  the  assist- 
ance of  the  trumpet  or  table  (indeed,  the 
evidence  relating  to  such  phenomena  is  so 
accumulative  and  corroborative  that  few 
would  attempt  to  question  it),  and  those  of 
us  who  have  had  any  actual  experience  with 
these  spontaneous  apparitions,  popularly 
designated  ghosts,  know  only  too  well  the 
awe  and  terror  they  inspire  in  humans  and 
animals  alike. 

It  was  the  same  in  Biblical  days.  When 
confronted  with  the  angel  of  the  Lord 
Balaam's  ass  falls  down,  whilst  its  rider 
bows  his  head  to  shut  the  vision  out 
(Numbers  xxii.  27-31) ;  and  Moses,  when  the 
Lord  calls  to  him  from  the  burning  bush, 
hides  his  face,  for  he  is  afraid  to  look  upon 
God  (Exodus  iii.  6).  How  different  is  this 
behavior  from  that  of  the  mediums  of  to- 
day, who  are  acclaimed  by  Spiritualists  as 


24         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

the  successors  of  Moses,  Balaam,  and  other 
prophets  of  the  Scriptures.  These  Spirit- 
ualistic mediums  profess  to  see  spirit  after 
spirit  with  the  utmost  sang-froid.  They 
have  only  to  receive  a  fee,  or  the  promise  of 
one,  and  spirits  of  all  sorts  come  with  the 
regularity  of  an  automaton,  whilst  they— 
the  mediums — do  not  even  '  turn  a  hair. 
Besides,  I  have  never  heard  of  a  dog  that 
has  been  present  on  any  such  occasion— 
and  those  of  us  who  have  tested  dogs  in 
haunted  houses  know  how  susceptible  they 
are  to  fear — being  in  the  least  degree 
terrified. 

Can  it  be  that  these  mediums  and  Spirit- 
ualists are  holier  than  Moses?  If  they  are 
not,  how  else  can  they  account  for  their  total 
unconcern,  and  for  the  complete  absence  of 
either  awe,  fear,  or  astonishment  at  any  of 
their  exhibitions? 

Just  to  show  to  what  an  extent  this  craze 
for  the  so-called  psychic  faculty  has  ''caught 
on,"  I  cannot  refrain  from  referring  to  a 
little  book  sent  me  the  other  day,  entitled 
''The  Ministry  of  Angels."1  We  are  pre- 

i  By  Mrs.  Joy  Snell  (published  1919,  by  G.  Bell  *  Sons, 
Ltd). 


DISTORTS  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      25 

pared  for  something  wonderful  from  the 
following  passage  in  the  preface : 

"It  (the  book)  has  been  written  because  angels  have 
told  her  (the  authoress)  that  rare  psychic  powers  have 
been  bestowed  on  her,  and  she  has  been  permitted  to  see 
what  is  hidden  from  the  vast  majority  of  mankind  until 
after  death." 

But  forewarned  as  we  are,  we  are  certainly 
not  ready  for  what  follows.  It  shocks  us 
immeasurably. 

The  authoress  states  that  when  a  child 
she  awoke  one  night  to  find  the  room  flooded 
with  sunlight,  and  she  goes  on  to  describe 
two  figures  that  suddenly  appeared  to  her 
(pp.  11-12) : 

"One  was  that  of  a  man,"  she  says,  "the  other  that  of 
a  woman.  They  were  clad  in  shining,  white  robes. 
Around  the  head  of  each  was  a  bright  halo.  The  man 
stretched  forth  his  hand  and  said:  'Be  not  dismayed; 
blessed  shalt  thou  be.'  Then  the  woman  spoke  and  said : 
'Behold  the  Saviour !  And  I  am  His  mother.' " 

The  authoress  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
seized  with  any  of  that  fear  that  came  upon 
the  prophets  of  old,  when  in  the  presence  of 
God  or  His  angels,  or  that  the  disciples  felt 


26         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

at  the  Transfiguration  (St.  Matthew  xvii.  6), 
or  when  our  Lord  appeared  to  them  after 
the  Crucifixion  (St.  Luke  xxiv.  37),  but  to 
have  taken  the  most  glorious  and  awe-in- 
spiring of  all  possible  visions  simply  as  a 
prognostication  of  her  own  death.  It  never 
seems  to  have  occurred  to  her — as  it  most 
certainly  would  have  occurred  to  most  people 
— how  very  extraordinary  it  was  that  she 
should  have  been  singled  out  from  among 
all  other  earthly  beings  for  such  a  visitation 
— a  visitation  of  a  nature  that — as  far  as 
one  knows — has  certainly  never  taken  place 
since  the  days  of  our  Lord. 

Does  the  authoress  imagine  she  possesses 
a  character  and  qualities  not  only  far — but 
immeasurably  far  superior  to  those  of  any 
of  the  countless  human  beings  that  have 
existed  since  the  time  of  the  Crucifixion,  or 
does  she  attribute  the  phenomena  to  a  de- 
velopment of  psychic  propensities  which  can 
certainly  have  no  parallel? 

The  more  rational  and  reflective  among 
us  will,  I  think,  incline  to  the  belief  that 
such  a  visitation  was  actually  subjective, 
and  hallucinatory,  and  prompted  by  nothing 
more  than  colossal  self-estimation,  an  opin- 


DISTORTS  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT     27 

ion  which  is  more  than  justified  by  a  further 
perusal — if  patience  permits — of  the  work. 
At  any  rate  such  testimony,  since  it  is  in  no 
way  corroborated,  furnishes  no  proof  what- 
ever either  of  so-called  spirit  mediumship 
or  of  a  psychic  faculty,  but  merely  serves 
to  illustrate,  as  I  have  said  before,  to  what 
a  pitch  of  abandonment  and  lack  of  self- 
restraint  this  mad  craze  for  Spiritualism, 
and  the  notoriety  it  sometimes  brings  with 
it,  has  been  carried. 

In  accordance  with  this  mad  craze  every 
reference  to  God  and  His  angels  appearing 
to,  or  communicating  with  man,  to  be  met 
with  in  the  Old  Testament,  is  converted  by 
Spiritualists  into  signifying  the  Almighty's 
approval  and  sanctioning  of  mediumship. 
In  their  attempt  to  force  the  Scriptures  into 
reconciliation  with  the  practices  of  their 
cult,  they  willfully  blind  themselves  and 
those  they  seek  to  pervert,  to  this  point — 
that  it  was  one  thing  for  God  and  His  angels 
to  demonstrate  themselves  spontaneously  to 
man,  and  quite  another  thing  for  man  to 
attempt,  after1  the  fashion  of  the  modern 
medium,  to  call  up  spirits,  indiscriminately, 
from  the  tomb  and  elsewhere.  There  is 


28         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

certainly  nothing  whatever  in  anything  God 
and  His  angels  either  said  or  did  to  warrant 
the  assumption  that  they  would  sanction 
such  proceedings.  On  the  contrary,  al- 
though there  is  an  abundance  of  evidence 
in  the  Old  Testament  to  show  that  God  and 
the  men  he  selected  as  His  prophets  and  con- 
fidants fully  recognized  the  fact  that  there 
were  people  (necromancers,  sorcerers, 
witches,  etc.)  who  knew,  and  were  capable 
of  putting  into  practice,  the  art  of  calling 
up  genuine  spirits,  good  and  bad,  and  people 
who  were  able  to  perform  all  kinds  of 
phenomena,  sometimes  through  bond  fide 
spirit  agency,  as,  for  example,  Pharaoh's 
sorcerers  (Exodus  vii.  11-12),  and  sometimes 
through  merely  clever  jugglery,  it  was 
against  these  people  and  their  practices  that 
God  and  His  chosen  representatives  most 
sternly  and  uncompromisingly  set  their 
faces.  If  there  is  any  doubt  at  all  as  to  this, 
one  has  only  to  refer  to  the  following : — 
Leviticus  xx.  6,  Leviticus  xix.  31,  Deuter- 
onomy xviii.  10-12,  1  Samuel  xxviii.  3  and  9, 
2  Kings  xxi.  6,  Isaiah  viii.  19,  Exodus  xxii. 
18. 
The  mediumship  of  to-day,  call  it  Spirit- 


DISTORTS  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      29 

ualism,  Spiritism  or  what  you  will,  is  simply 
an  attempt — albeit  a  feeble  and  in  most 
cases  abortive  one — at  imitation  of  the  nec- 
romancy, sorcery,  and  spirit  trafficking 
alluded  to  in  the  above  texts,  the  so-called 
guides  and  controls — Joey  Kings,  Fedoras 
and  other  spirit  entities — bearing  a  remark- 
able resemblance  to  what  were  once  known 
as  witches'  familiars. 

Then — in  those  far-off  Biblical  times, 
when  Chaldean  and  Egyptian  magic  had, 
without  doubt,  been  developed  to  a  very 
great  degree,  and  man  was  in  far  closer 
touch  with  the  primary  elements  in  Nature 
than  he  finds  it  possible  to  be  to-day,  the  nec- 
romancers, witches  and  the  like  were  in  all 
probability  really  able  to  conjure  up  spirits 
with  comparative  ease.  But  when  these 
races  gradually  disappeared,  their  art  seems 
— to  a  very  large  extent  at  least — to  have 
perished  with  them.  Other  nations,  the 
Greeks  and  Eomans,  for  instance,  and,  later 
still,  the  Moors  and  Arabs  all  made  desperate 
attempts  to  get  into  touch  with  the  dead, 
and  in  their  day,  too,  apparently  worked 
all  sorts  of  phenomena  and  miracles;  but  it 
is  very  doubtful  if  success  very  often  came 


30         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

to  them,  and  it  is  more  than  likely  that  most 
of  the  wonders  that  were  alleged  to  take 
place  were  manipulated  through  the  assist- 
ance of  an  advanced  knowledge  of  alchemy 
and  jugglery,  in  which  the  Eastern  nations, 
especially,  in  all  times  seem  to  have  been 
past  masters.  The  same  sort  of  thing,  the 
wild  craving  to  pry  into  every  forbidden  mys- 
tery, the  mad  desire  for  power  and  notoriety, 
to  be  something  quite  distinct  and  differ- 
ent from  anybody  else,  and  the  more  sordid 
yet  ever  increasing  love  of  riches,  came 
steadily  down  through  the  centuries,  con- 
taminating other  races  and  nations,  and  in- 
ducing them,  too,  to  try  and  force  open  the 
door  connecting  this  and  the  other  world  or 
worlds.  Italy,  Austria,  France,  England,  all 
in  their  turn,  became  infected — all  witnessed 
the  same  grim  and  secret  nocturnal  meetings 
in  closed  chambers,  the  same  frantic  en- 
deavors to  obtain  satanic  and  other  spirit 
aid  by  mystic  symbolism,  spells  and  incanta- 
tion, the  same  practice  of  resorting  at  mid- 
night to  cross  roads  and  other  desolate 
places  for  the  alleged  purpose  of  holding 
witches'  'Sabbaths. 

Our    records    of    those    times,    however, 


DISTORTS  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT      31 

suggest  very  strongly  that  if  the  super- 
natural did  occasionally  respond  to  the  in- 
cessant clamorings  for  it,  most  of  the  mani- 
festations were  simply  due  to  charlatanism 
and  trickery.  And  so  it  is  to-day.  The 
methods  that  were  employed  by  the  Babylo- 
nian and  Assyrian  necromancers  in  the  days 
of  Moses  and  other  of  those  old-world  proph- 
ets still  remain  in  obscurity.  Every  now  and 
then,  perhaps,  something  rather  inexplic- 
able does  occur  at  a  seance,  which  makes  one 
for  a  moment  wonder  if  another  key  to  fit 
the  lock  has  at  last  been  discovered,  and  in- 
tercourse with  the  spirit  world,  as  practiced 
by  the  ancients,  has  at  length  been  obtained ; 
but  apprehensions  on  this  score  speedily 
vanish,  for  that  something  does  not  respond 
again,  and  one  is  assured  that  the  occurrence 
was  purely  incidental  and  as  unlooked-for  on 
the  part  of  the  medium,  as  on  the  part  of  any 
one  else  present.  But  that  does  not  alter 
the  fact  that  by  the  Almighty,  the  God  of 
the  Bible,  which  we  in  this  country,  at  any 
rate,  have  been  taught  to  honor  and  respect, 
any  attempt  at  trafficking  with  denizens  of 
the  spirit  world,  good  or  bad  (for  the  former 
see  1  Samuel  xxviii.  15,  2  Samuel  xii.  23,  1 


32         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

Chronicles  x.  13),  no  matter  whether  the 
attempt  is  successful  or  not,  is  denounced 
and  forbidden.  There  must  be  no  compro- 
mising, no  equivocating  with  God,  and  if 
only,  inasmuch  as  Spiritualism,  citing  Scrip- 
ture for  its  own  purpose,  would  seek  to  win 
converts  by  giving  them  a  fallacious  and  en- 
tirely wrong  interpretation  of  the  Jehovah 
of  the  Jews'  views  on  these  matters,  it  is 
baneful  and  dangerous,  and  instead  of  being 
encouraged,  as  the  more  thoughtless  and 
ignorant  among  us  are  inclined  to  do,  it 
should  be  ruthlessly  exposed  and  banned. 


CHAPTER  III 

SPIRITUALISM   AND   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

WHEN  we  go  on  to  consider  the  Spiritual- 
ists' views  with  regard  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment, we  find  just  the  same  barefaced  at- 
tempts at  contortion  and  perversion.  The 
Christian  belief  that  Jesus  Christ  was,  and 
is  God  Incarnate  is  almost  universally 
denied.  Borrowing  their  terminology  from 
Theosophy,  many  of  the  Spiritualists,  even 
in  this  country,  allude  to  our  Lord  as  a  great 
master,  and  by  the  majority,  if  not  indeed 
by  all  of  them,  He  is  regarded  as  no  more 
saintly,  no  more  celestial  than  a  medium,  a 
few  degrees,  perhaps,  more  psychic  and 
spirit-inspired  than  any  present-day  medium, 
but  still  one  of  precisely  the  same  stock,  and 
more  or  less — if  not,  indeed,  quite — in  the 
same  category. 

Dr.  J.  M.  Peebles,  for  instance,  in  refer- 
ring to  our  Lord,  says.: 

33 


84         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

''When  that  highly  inspired  man  of  Nazareth 
preached  His  radical  doctrines  in  Palestine  and  per- 
formed His  astonishing  mediumistic  works,  etc."  (vide 
"What  is  Spiritualism,"  pp.  5-6), 

and  again, 

"Spiritualists,  if  intelligent,  don't  deny  the  existence 
of  God — nor  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  mediumistic 
man"  (same  work,  p.  10) ; 

whilst  Leon  Denis  again  in  ' '  Christianity  and 
Spiritualism"  says: 

"Jesus  came,  a  powerful  spirit  and  Divine  missionary, 
an  inspired  medium"  (p.  22). 

And  these  views  will  be  found  to  tally  with 
those  of  practically  all  Spiritualists  who  cite 
the  New  Testament  in  their  cause. 

Christ,  Whose  spotless  life  and  gentle  and 
humane  disposition  made  Him  not  merely 
stand  out  as  quite  distinct  from  any  of  the 
men  and  women  of  His  time,  but  as  equally 
distinct  from  any  of  His  predecessors  or 
successors,  is  fetched  from  off  the  pedestal, 
on  which  the  love  and  more  than  justifiable 
adoration  of  centuries  has  placed  Him,  and 
dragged  through  the  mire.  One  cannot,  in- 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  35 

deed,  speak  strongly  enough  on  the  subject. 
One  can  only  say  this,  that  any  attempt  to 
classify  one  of  such  infinite  and  unparal- 
leled grace,  mental  beauty,  and  moral  perfec- 
tions as  our  Blessed  Lord,  with  those  who, 
more  often  than  not,  prove  to  be  of  sordid 
nature,  inferior  intellect,  and  highly  question- 
able morals,  namely  mediums,  is  both  blas- 
phemous in  the  extreme  and  absurd,  and  one 
can  only  conclude  that  those  who  are  capable 
of  such  a  classification  are  either  hopeless 
lunatics  (more  dangerous  than  many  of  those 
imprisoned  in  asylums),  or  else  that  they 
owe  their  inspirations  to  the  most  malignant 
and  mischievous  type  of  spirit,  the  only  type 
which,  in  my  opinion,  is  likely  to  respond  to 
the  beck  and  call  of  human  beings. 

After  such  profanity  one  is  not  surprised 
at  anything  a  Spiritualist  asserts.  There- 
fore the  following  quotation  (vide  p.  27  of 
"Christianity,  Ghurchianity  or  Spiritual- 
ism," by  J.  M.  Peebles,  M.D.)  "true 
Spiritualism  and  true  Christianity  are  es- 
sentially one"  does  not  give  us  the  shock  it 
otherwise  might  have  done.  The  mind  that 
is  capable  of  such  a  grotesquely  fallacious 
representation  of  Jesus  Christ  as  that  pre- 


sented  by  Dr.  Peebles  is  capable  of  any  out- 
rageous fallacy,  and  it  is  only  in  keeping  with 
his  unconquerable  habit  of  perversion,  that 
he  should  persuade  himself  and  try  to  per- 
suade others  that  the  inimitable  creed  of 
Christianity  is  merely  another  name  for  his 
own  unwholesome,  illogical  and  ephemeral 
cult  of  Spiritualism. 

Christ's  teaching,  as  gleaned  from  the 
mere  text  of  the  New  Testament,  strikes 
most  readers  as  the  essence  of  directness 
and  simplicity,  quite  in  harmony  with  His 
character;  but  Spiritualism,  the  true  Spirit- 
ualism Dr.  Peebles  and  others  boast  about, 
invests  everything  Christ  said  or  did  with 
an  air  of  profound  mystery  and  subtle 
meaning.  The  parables  that  perfectly  well 
explain  themselves  to  readers  of  any  age 
and  with  any  intelligence  at  all,  are  declared 
to  be  only  interpretable  to  psychics  and  ini- 
tiates in  the  innermost  mysteries  of  Higher 
Thought,  and  the  texts  usually  quoted  in  sup- 
port of  these  assertions  (namely  St.  Matthew 
xiii.  10-11  and  St.  Mark  iv.  11-12),  are  also 
fondly  believed  to  prove  conclusively  that 
Christ  in  selecting  the  Apostles,  chose  them 
solely  for  their  alleged  mediumistic  powers. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  37 

Spiritualists  cannot,  or  will  not,  realize  that 
this  act  of  selection  marked  a  most  unique 
and  momentous  occasion,  and  that  the 
Apostles,  after  the  call,  owed  their  increased 
wisdom  and  power  to  perform  miracles,  not 
to  any  such  sordid,  unequivocally  denounced 
agency  as  necromancy,  or,  to  use  the  modern 
term,  mediumship,  but  wholly  to  Divine — as 
utterly  distinct  from  ordinary  spirit — influ- 
ence. Christ  obviously  chose  His  Apostles 
for  their  characters — they  were  the  type  of 
men  most  likely  to  make  sound  and  capable 
preachers,  and  to  carry  on  His  mission  of 
love  and  moral  reformation ;  men  possessing 
attributes  of  a  nature  very  different  from 
that  characterizing  the  so-called  psychist 
and  medium  of  to-day.  But,  if  any  further 
proof  of  this  be  needed,  one  has  only  to  com- 
pare the  miracles  Christ  and  His  disciples 
wrought  with  the  trumpery  phenomena  pro- 
duced by  these  mediums.  Christ  not  only 
healed  the  blind,  the  halt,  the  maimed  and 
those  suffering  from  such  incurable  diseases 
as  leprosy,  but  He  brought  back  the  dead  to 
life,  and  made  the  tossing,  roaring  sea  lie 
still  and  silent.  Could  any  of  the  present- 
day  professional  mediums,  with  all  their 


38         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

boasted  super-normal  and  highly  developed 
spiritual  faculties,  do  the  same?  No,  they 
could  not.  Far  from  doing  what  Christ  and 
His  Apostles  did,  for  the  good  of  mankind, 
mediums  never,  through  their  alleged  spirit 
phenomena  and  spirit  influence,  perform  any- 
thing really  useful,  or  beneficial  or  even  ex- 
ceptionally wonderful.  Far  from  restoring 
the  blind,  or  raising  the  dead,  they  cannot 
even  cure,  on  the  spot,  an  ordinary  cold  in 
the  head,  make  the  hair  grow  again  on  the 
head  of  a  middle-aged  or  long  bald  old  per- 
son, or  cause  a  fresh  natural  tooth  to  sud- 
denly usurp  the  place  of  one  that  is  badly  de- 
cayed. They  cannot  even  with  a  word  or 
wave  of  their  hand  stop  a  bird  in  full  flight 
in  the  air,  or  bring  to  a  halt,  by  a  mere  glance, 
an  earwig  or  a  black  beetle.  To  give  them 
their  due,  however,  they  do  not  attempt  to  do 
the  really  marvelous — perhaps  they  are  not 
quite  sure  of  the  capacities  of  their  friends 
on  the  other  side,  who  obviously  have  not 
much  in  common  with  St.  Peter  nor  St.  John 
— but  content  themselves  with  trying  to 
make  trumpets  speak,  tambourines  dance, 
tables  and  chairs  rise  and  walk,  and  flowers 
and  sometimes  fish — even  eels — appear  ap- 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  39 

parently  from  nowhere ;  occasionally  varying 
their  program  with  materializations, 
which  "phenomena,"  in  reality,  are  very 
feeble,  unconvincing  and  not  at  all  alarming 
spirit  impersonations,  usually  by  " controls" 
and  other  professed  denizens  from  the  spirit 
world.  But  whereas  Christ  and  His  Apostles 
were  always  successful  in  their  undoubted 
miracles,  "mediums"  are  not  infrequently 
detected  in  the  most  puerile  and  vulgar  acts 
of  deception  and  trickery. 

There  is  really  no  similarity  whatever 
between  Christ  and  His  Apostles  and  the 
modern  medium  and  Spiritualist ;  indeed,  the 
gulf  of  differences  separating  them  is  so 
wide  that  it  could  not  be  bridged. 

'Christ's  doctrine  of  repentance  is  tacitly 
accepted  as  a  possible  modifier  in  the  chain 
of  reincarnation  (reincarnation  being  a 
theory  in  which  the  majority,  at  least,  of 
Spiritualists,  even  those  who  profess  what 
they  term  "true"  Christianity,  believe),  but 
His  equally  essential  teachings  with  regard 
to  forgiveness  are  discountenanced  and 
ignored.  Spiritualists  apparently  are  much 
divided  as  to  what  happens  to  the  soul  after 
death.  Some,  as  may  be  gathered  from  cer- 


40         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

tain  passages  in  Sir  Oliver  Lodge's  " Ray- 
mond, "  believe  that  man  goes  on  in  his  im- 
material state  from  very  much  the  same  place 
as  he  left  off  in  his  physical  body,  that  the 
spirit  world  is  merely  an  ethereal  counter- 
part of  this,  containing  houses  like  ours, 
though  made  only  of  a  sort  of  emanation 
from  this  earth,  and  places — presumably 
shops  and  public-houses — where  clothes 
made  from  a  species  of  decayed  worsted, 
cigars  composed  of  ethers,  gases  and  es- 
sences, and,  of  course,  whiskies-and-sodas 
(without  the  last-named,  according  to  the 
great  majority  of  mediums,  no  life,  spiritual 
or  otherwise,  would  seem  to  be  complete) 
could  be  procured.  Such  a  view  of  another 
life — so  utterly  contradictory  to  the  teach- 
ings of  Jesus  Christ — appears  to  me  very 
wild  and  extravagant,  but,  as  a  correspondent 
of  the  Sunday  Times  in  the  issue  for  30th 
September,  1917,  remarks,  "we  must  not  take 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge  too  seriously'*;  still  it  finds 
not  a  few  supporters,  and  these  may  be  found 
chiefly  in  the  ranks  of  those  Spiritualists  and 
Psychical  Researchers,  who,  having  an  un- 
reasoning respect  for  titles,  blindly  accept 
anything  a  man  possessing  one  may  happen 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  41 

to  say,  no  matter  how  irrational  and  footling 
his  remarks  may  appear  to  saner  and  less 
easily  influenced  people.  Another  view,  and 
the  one  generally  adopted  by  those  Spirit- 
ualists in  this  country,  who  profess  to  be 
what  they  are  pleased  to  term  "true" 
Christians,  is  that  the  soul,  on  parting  with 
the  material  body  at  physical  dissolution, 
enters  the  lowest  spiritual  planes,  i.e.,  those 
in  closest  contact  to  this  world,  where  it  re- 
mains for  just  as  long  as  its  passions  and 
earthly  cravings  and  tendencies  remain  with 
it.  This  view,  to  some  extent  at  least,  tallies 
with  many  Churchmen's  opinions  with  re- 
gard to  a  Purgatory  or  intermediate  state, 
and  finds  much  support  in  Christ's  actual 
teachings;  but,  as  might  be  expected  by  any 
one  who  knows  them,  the  Spiritualists  who 
embrace  it  soon  fly  off  to  something  wildly 
improbable,  and  uncorroborated,  saving  by 
their  own  mad,  freakish  fancies,  and  ignorant, 
if  not  willful,  Biblical  misrepresentations  and 
distortions.  The  doctrine  of  a  heaven  is  ac- 
cepted under  the  theosophical  camouflage  of 
"the  highest  spiritual  planes,"  whilst  that 
of  a  hell  is  wholly  discredited,  the  vilest  and 
most  earth-tied  of  spirits,  though  confined  to 


42         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

the  lowest  spiritual  planes,  being  believed  to 
have  the  power  to  wander  there  ad  libitum, 
indulging  themselves  to  excess  in  all  their 
old  passions,  and  perfectly  able,  when  the 
mood  seizes  them,  or  some  one  invokes  them, 
to  get  into  immediate  touch  with  the  material 
world,  whose  inhabitants  they  can  tempt  and 
annoy  at  will. 

Those  of  us  who  believe  in  hauntings  and 
in  disturbances  in  houses  and  localities  by 
spirits,  which  apparently  come  there  spon- 
taneously, must  accept  the  theory  that  there 
is  a  spirit  world — perhaps  more  than  one — : 
very  close  to  this  world,  but  there  is  no  actual 
proof  that  its  denizens  were  ever  of  our  flesh 
and  blood,  or  anything  to  discountenance  the 
possibility,  if  not,  indeed  probability,  either 
that  they  be  demons  such  as  are  referred  to 
in  more  than  one  passage  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment (St.  Matthew  xii.  27,  Acts  xix.  13-14), 
or  that  they  belong  to  one  or  other  of  the 
types  of  spirit  recorded  in  Isaiah  xiii.  21. 
But  the  doctrine — taught  and  practiced  by 
all  Spiritualists — to  which  Christians  and, 
especially,  Catholics,  take  the  very  greatest 
exception,  is  that  of  the  invoked  intercourse 
between  the  dead  and  the  living. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  48 

Taking  advantage  of  the  fact  that  many 
Christians  and  G'hurchmen  believe  that  we 
who  are  here  on  earth  should  pray  for  spirits 
in  the  intermediate  state,  i.e.,  those  capable 
of  rising  to  a  higher  sphere,  and  on  the  other 
hand  that  spirits  who  have  passed  over  should 
pray  for  those  left  behind  in  the  physical 
world,  Spiritualists  have  construed  such  a 
momentous  happening  as  the  Transfiguration 
and  such  passages  as  those  contained  in  1 
Peter  iii.  19,  1  Peter  iv.  6,  and  Revelations 
vi.  10,  into  signifying  full  license  to  mediums 
and  others  of  their  ilk,  to  get  in  touch  with 
spirits  of  the  dead  whenever  the  mood  (or 
prospect  of  money)  seizes  them.  Now  the 
Bible  does  not  deny  the  possibility  of  the 
dead  returning  on  rare  occasions  and  for 
some  very  specific  reason,  but  nothing  save 
the  wildest  and  most  perverted  stretch  of  the 
imagination  could  metamorphose  the  Trans- 
figuration, or  any  of  the  texts  I  have  men- 
tioned, or  any  other  passages  in  the  Bible, 
into  signifying  sanction  for  such  inter- 
course with  the  dead  as  is  alleged  to  be  prac- 
ticed by  the  present-day  medium. 

Mediums,  however  much  they  may  pre- 
tend to  the  contrary,  and  be  backed  up  in 


44         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

their  pretensions  by  such  would-be  authori- 
ties on  occult  matters  as  Blavatsky  and  cer- 
tain titled  scientists  who  are  posing  as  Psy- 
chical Researchers,  know  absolutely  nothing 
as  to  what  govern  conditions  on  the  other 
side.  Samuel,  when  called  up  by  the  witch 
of  Endor,  sternly  rebuked  Saul  for  bringing 
him  back,  hence  it  is  quite  conceivable  that 
the  efforts  made  by  mediums  to  forcibly  com- 
municate with  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  and 
through  their  agency  to  perform  all  kinds 
of  phenomena,  may,  even  though  unsuccess- 
ful (which,  I  believe,  is  almost  invariably  the 
case)  entail  a  very  considerable  amount  of 
suffering  on  those  who  are  invoked. 

Surely  this  is  a  probability  meriting  our 
very  gravest  consideration.  In  any  case  the 
mere  thought  of  those  we  love  and  respect 
being  forced  to  respond  to  the  call  of  mere 
strangers,  people  out  to  gratify  their  curi- 
osity and  fill  their  purses,  is  revolting  in  the 
extreme,  and  for  this  reason,  chiefly,  per- 
haps, the  Catholic  Church,  and,  indeed,  all 
Christian  Churches,  as  well  as  all  really  hu- 
mane and  thoughtful  people  strongly  con- 
demn seances,  both  public  and  private  ones 
alike. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  45 

But  there  is  another  danger  in  connection 
with  the  practice  of  Spiritualism,  which  I 
may  as  well  deal  with  here,  when  specializ- 
ing on  the  religious  and  moral  aspects  of  the 
Question,  and  that  is  the  effects  of  these  at- 
tempts at  spirit  intercourse  on  the  charac- 
ters of  the  living  people  who  partake  in 
them. 

The  unreliable  and  often  mischievous  na- 
ture of  the  messages  obtained  at  sittings 
clearly  demonstrates  that  such  messages  do 
not  emanate  either  from  intelligent  or  holy 
sources,  and  that  if  they  come  from  bond 
fide  spirits,  these  spirits  can  only  be  on  a 
very  low  plane,  and  are  therefore  in  no  way 
calculated  to  improve  either  the  mind  or  the 
morals. 

It  is,  I  believe,  a  fact  that  can  be  well  sub- 
stantiated, that  the  majority  of  mediums  at 
all  events — people  who  have  been  persuaded 
to  develop  their  so-called  psychic  faculties 
and  devote  the  bulk  of  their  time  to  going 
into  trances  (i.e.,  yielding  up  their  minds  to 
whatever  controlling  spirit  cares  to  come 
along),  to  automatic  writing,  crystal  gazing, 
and  table  turning — speedily  degenerate,  and 
in  the  end  become  absolutely  demoralized  and 


46         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

untrustworthy.  That  is  a  fact,  I  repeat, 
which  I  have  reasons  for  believing  can  be 
thoroughly  well  confirmed,  as  can  also  the 
fact  that  many  of  the  people  who  continually 
attend  seances,  develop  manias  which  event- 
ually spoil  their  lives  and  not  infrequently 
lead  to  suicide.  Can,  I  ask,  such  happenings 
be  due  to  any  agency  that  is  beneficial  or  de- 
sirable, whether  spirit  or  otherwise  ?  It  must 
be  remembered  that  there  were  Spiritualists 
in  the  days  of  the  New  Testament — a  set  of 
people  quite  distinct  from  the  disciples  and 
followers  of  Christ,  with  regard  to  whom 
both  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles  uttered 
many  grave  warnings  (see  St.  Matthew  xii. 
27,  St.  Matthew  xxiv.  24-26,  Acts  xix.  13-14, 
Galatians  i.  8-9,  Revelations  xxii.  18-19),  and 
it  is  in  these  Spiritualists  or  necromancers, 
rather  than  in  any  of  the  miracle  workers  of 
the  Old  Testament,  that  the  present-day 
mediums  and  their  supporters  find  their  coun- 
terparts. There  is,  indeed,  a  similarity  be- 
tween them  that  is  most  marked  and  clearly 
perceptible  to  any  but  the  hopelessly  stupid 
or  willfully  blind. 

It  will  doubtless  be  protested  again  by  cer- 
tain Spiritualists,  those  who,  claiming  to  have 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  47 

got  beyond  the  stage  of  seeking  for  mere 
physical  demonstrations,  assert  that  they  are 
quite  distinct  from  Spiritists,  as  they  some- 
what superciliously  designate  them,  that  the 
visions  they  see  and  the  messages  they  re- 
ceive are  of  a  very  superior  order,  almost, 
indeed,  if  not  quite,  identical  with  those  seen 
and  received  by  the  Apostles.  Certain  of  this 
fraternity  have  gone  so  far  as  to  tell  me 
that  they  have  visited,  whilst  in  trances,  the 
most  consecrated  and  zealously  exclusive 
parts  of  Heaven,  and  frequently  conversed 
with  saints  and  some  of  the  very  holiest  of 
the  great  teachers  and  thinkers  of  the  past — 
privileges,  they  assured  me,  that  were 
strictly  confined  to  devotees  of  Spiritualism 
and  initiates  in  all  its  innermost  mysteries. 
In  order  to  give  an  air  of  authority  to  these 
pretensions  they  resort  again  to  the  Scrip- 
tures, this  time  to  the  New  Testament,  and 
pointing  to  St.  Peter,  St.  John  and  other  of 
the  Apostles,  assume  that  in  them  there  are 
evidences  of  their  own  ability  to  come  in 
touch  with  the  Divine  side  of  the  spirit  world. 
What  the  Apostles  did,  they  argue,  we  can 
do;  their  authority  is  ours;  for  they  only 
possessed  psychic  faculties  similar  to  ours. 


48         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

They  forget,  however,  as  I  have  already  en- 
deavored to  explain,  that  the  Apostles  lived 
in  a  time  of  the  greatest  moment  in  the 
world 's  history ;  that  they  belonged  to  a  race 
specially  selected  and  watched  over  by  God; 
that  the  gifts  bestowed  on  them  were  only 
apparent  after  their  call — there  is  nothing  to 
prove  they  had  the  so-called  psychic  faculty 
prior  to  this  event — that  though  it  is  true  they 
saw  visions,  and  heard  voices,  and  spoke  in 
strange  tongues,  etc.,  it  is  also  equally  true 
they  performed  miracles  of  the  greatest  pos- 
sible benefit  to  their  fellow-creatures  (which 
is  certainly  not  the  case  with  any  of  the  pres- 
ent-day Spiritualists) ;  and  that  they  were 
all  men — with  the  exception  of  Judas,  who 
owed  his  downfall  to  a  national  weakness 
taken  advantage  of  by  the  devil — of  the  most 
exceptional  moral  character,  which,  as  I  have 
pointed  out  before,  cannot  possibly  be  said 
of  the  modern  Spiritualists ;  so  that  the  lat- 
ter, whether  initiates  of  the  very  highest 
order  or  not,  have  really  no  warrant  what- 
ever for  the  spiritual  privileges  to  which 
they  lay  claim,  and  consequently  there  is  little 
reason,  if  any,  for  assigning  them  to  a  differ- 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  49 

» 

ent  and  separate  category  from  that  of  the 
ordinary  Spiritist. 

For  instances  of  the  many  disastrous  ef- 
fects Spiritualism — albeit  the  higher  branch 
of  the  cult — has  on  character,  and  to  show 
to  what  an  extent  human  egotism,  vanity 
and  self-importance  are  fostered  by  it,  I  can- 
not do  better  than  refer  to  a  work  entitled 
"Talks  with  the  Dead."  It  is  edited — and, 
from  what  the  context  suggests,  presumably 
written— by  John  Lobb,  F.E.G.S.,  F.R.Hist. 
S.,  and  published  by  a  firm  called  after  his 
name.  The  book  is  well  garnished  with  texts, 
as,  per  example,  on  the  title  page  we  find 
"And  there  appeared  unto  them  Elias  with 
Moses;  and  they  were  talking  with  Jesus" 
(St.  Mark  ix.  4),  and  on  the  page  opposite  the 
title  page,  under  a  photograph  purporting 
to  be  that  of  "one  of  the  editor's  band  of 
spirit  ministers"  we  get,  "Are  they  not  all 
ministering  spirits  sent  forth  to  minister?" 
(Hebrews  i.  14),  and  everywhere  one  is  met 
with  attempts  to  compare  the  mediumship 
of  to-day  with  the  Divine  inspiration  and 
highest  spiritual  agency  of  Old  and  New 
Testament  days.  See,  for  example,  page  86, 


50        MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

where  we  read  these  remarkable  lines :  *  *  The 
second  chapter  (i.e.  of  Acts)  contains  an  ac- 
count of  the  first  seance  held  by  the  disciples 
after  Christ's  Ascension";  needless  to  say, 
one  looks  for  it  in  vain ;  page  85,  where  we  find 
that  the  angel  that  appeared  unto  Moses  in 
a  flame  of  fire  (Exodus  iii.  2),  and  the  grant- 
ing to  Abraham  of  a  sign  from  God  in  the 
form  of  a  smoking  furnace,  are  likened  to 
the  trumpery  performances  of  the  so-called 
spirit  control  "John  King,"  and  scattered 
throughout  the  book  other  equally  nonsensi- 
cal and  profane  comparisons,  too  numerous 
to  mention.  Text  after  text,  too,  is  mutilated 
and  contorted  to  suit  the  editor  or  author's 
purpose,  but  one  would  have  credited  him 
with  rather  more  caution  and  astuteness  than 
to  give  away  his  cause  so  abruptly  and  com- 
pletely as  he  does  on  page  88,  where,  after 
quoting  Daniel  v.  5  (which  narrates  the  inci- 
dent of  the  writing  on  the  wall)  he  goes  on 
to  say : 

"Many  sitters  will  attest  that  hands  frequently  take 
hold  of  theirs,  pat  their  face,  and  allow  them  to  hold 
them.  Scores  of  times  I  have  held  the  materialized 
hands  of  spirits.  They  have  taken  from  the  pockets  of 
those  present  sweets  and  placed  them  in  my  mouth.  .  .  . 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  51 

A  small  musical  box  out  of  order  has  often  by  spirit 
hands  been  taken  to  pieces  and  set  going,  etc." 

Precisely,  Mr.  Lobb;  it  is  just  those  vulgar 
and  foolish  antics  you  speak  about  that  place 
the  phenomena  contrived  by  the  present-day 
medium  on  an  entirely  different  footing  from 
that  of  the  miracles  performed  by  God's 
select,  either  in  the  Old  or  New  Testament; 
and  which  makes  one  positively  certain  that 
if  due  to  spirit  agency,  at  all,  that  agency 
can  only  emanate  from  the  lowest  possible 
planes. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add,  perhaps, 
that,  after  little  gambols  of  this  kind,  Mr. 
Lobb  and  his  friends  should  be  visited  by  the 
spirits  of  all  kinds  of  eminents.  On  page 
133,  for  instance,  he  says: 

"At  the  close  of  my  services  in  London  and  the  Prov- 
inces clairvoyants  present  often  remain  to  let  me  know 
the  number  and  names  of  spirits  present  on  the  plat- 
form and  in  the  building.  They  name  them  one  after 
another — C.  H.  Spurgeon,  Hugh  Price  Hughes,  W.  E. 
Gladstone,  Geo.  Muller,  etc."; 

whilst  in  other  parts  of  the  book  references 
are  made  to  the  return  of  Mrs.  Catherine 
Booth,  Sir  Edwin  Arnold,  Charles  Dickens, 


52         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

John  Wesley,  John  Bunyan,  John  Dryden, 
and,  of  course,  William  Shakespeare  (no 
Spiritualistic  seance  is  complete  without 
either  Shakespeare  or  Dickens,  who  would 
appear  to  have  many  "egos"  and  to  be  cap- 
able of  much  division,  for  they  are  often  al- 
leged to  be  present  in  more  circles  than  one 
at  the  same  time).  That  there  can  be  found 
people  ready  to  believe  that  the  spirits  of 
such  of  our  great  departed  as  Shakespeare 
and  Dickens  should  leave  all  the  solemnities 
of  the  tomb  to  attend  meetings  and  seances 
presided  over  by  men  of  no  greater  mental 
capacity  than  John  Lobb  and  other  present- 
day  Spiritualists,  is  almost  inconceivable. 
It  can,  in  fact,  only  be  accounted  for  by  one 
or  other  of  the  following  assumptions :  either 
that  the  people  who  swallow  such  absurdities 
are  naturally  weak-minded — were  born  so — 
or  that  constant  attendance  at  such  circles 
has  brought  about  a  mental  degeneracy  which 
is,  very  possibly,  really  due  to  spirit  influence, 
the  influence  of  that  type  of  spirit  most  likely 
to  respond  to  evocation  on  such  occasions, 
namely,  impersonating  demons,  or  to  use  a 
Spiritualistic  expression  ' '  elementals. " 
My  reference  to  Mr.  Lobb  and  his  work 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  53 

thus  serves  a  dual  purpose — it  demonstrates 
the  extent  to  which  human  vanity  as  well  as 
human  credulity  can  be  carried,  when  in- 
fluenced by  Spiritualism;  and,  sad  to  say, 
the  air  of  extreme  self-satisfaction  and  smug- 
ness so  apparent  in  every  page  of  the  volume, 
is  but  characteristic  of  the  generality  of  all 
so-called  exponents  of  the  cult. 

To  continue.  I  have  referred  to  two  of 
the  theories  entertained  by  Spiritualists  with 
regard  to  the  fate  of  the  spirit  on  leaving  the 
material  body,  I  now  come  to  a  third — that  of 
reincarnation. 

In  brief,  reincarnation  is  a  travesty  of  the 
sequence  of  cause  and  effect.  According  to 
its  doctrine  action,  whether  physical  or  men- 
tal, leaves  its  inevitable  traces,  and  these 
traces,  whatever  the  Bible  may  say  to  the 
contrary,  cannot  be  wiped  out  in  a  moment. 
On  them  and  them  only  rests  our  future — 
there  can  be  no  intervening  agency.  There 
is,  in  fact,  no  such  thing  as  a  sudden  change 
of  heart;  sudden  conversion  and  the  realiza- 
tion of  forgiveness  are  only  fancies;  they 
have  no  existence  apart  from  our  imagina- 
tion ;  and  the  highest  planes  of  spiritual  per- 
fection can  only  be  obtained  by  a  drastic  sys- 


64         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

tern  of  purification  which  may  last  through- 
out centuries.  "  To-day  thou  shalt  be  with 
me  in  Paradise"  is  a  delusion  and  a  snare. 
Man,  himself,  must  blot  out  his  sins,  and,  in 
order  to  do  this,  he  must  keep  on  coming  back 
to  this  physical  world  in  a  fresh  body  till  he 
leads  a  life  absolutely  free  from  any  vestige 
of  vice.  Even  as  man  fashioned  his  present 
fate  in  the  past,  so  he  is  fashioning  his  fu- 
ture fate  in  the  immediate  present — and  what 
is  done  cannot  be  undone.  It  is  a  cold,  com- 
fortless and  really  hopeless  creed,  for  it 
would  seem  to  be  quite  impossible  to  rid  our- 
selves of  all  vice,  especially  if  we  regard 
vice — as  we  ought  to  do — as  something  more 
than  the  mere  indulgence  of  our  cravings  for 
sexual  intercourse  or  such  acts  as  are  punish- 
able by  the  law.  Greed,  selfishness,  and 
scandal-mongering  are  all  strictly  speaking 
vices,  and  what  man  or  woman  is  there,  who, 
looking  back  upon  his  or  her  life,  can  honestly 
say  that  it  is  absolutely  free  from  all  three 
of  them?  Hence,  it  follows  that  although 
the  world  is,  accordfng  to  geologists,  many 
millions  of  years  old,  no  one  alive  now — or 
within  living  man's  memory — is  within 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  55 

measurable  distance  of  getting  to  the  highest 
spiritual  planes. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  principles  of 
reincarnation  are  at  total  variance  with  the 
Atonement  and  the  very  fundamentals  of 
Christ's  teachings,  so  much  so  that  one  won- 
ders how  Spiritualists  embracing  such  prin- 
ciples can  possibly  call  themselves  Chris- 
tians. But  there  are  many  who  do,  many 
who,  regarding  our  Lord  as  a  mere  spirit-in- 
spired man  and  medium,  cite  the  following 
passages  from  the  Gospels  (notably  St.  John 
iii.  3-11,  and  St.  Matthew  xviii.  3)  in  sup- 
port of  their  theory  that  Christ  Himself  was 
an  expounder  of  the  doctrine  of  reincarna- 
tion. 

To  ordinary  and  rational  minds  the  mean- 
ing in  these  texts  will  appear  quite  simple 
and  direct ;  our  Lord  points  out  to  Nicodemus 
and  the  disciples  the  necessity  of  becoming 
simple  and  trustful  as  children,  in  order  to 
gain  admittance  to  Heaven ;  and  it  would  be 
difficult  to  realize  how  any  one  could  read  an- 
other meaning  in  these  texts,  had  one  not 
learnt  from  a  personal  knowledge  of  Spirit- 
ualists that  their  imagination  is  only  equaled 


56         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

by  their  astounding  self-esteem.  Believing, 
or  pretending  to  believe,  that  the  spirits  of 
Shakespeare  and  Dryden  attend  seances 
given  by  comparative  nonentities,  and  make 
tables  and  other  articles  jump  about  the 
room,  Spiritualists  stick  at  nothing,  and  we 
find  them  attributing  to  our  Lord's  sayings 
cabalistic  secrets  that  were  in  total  variance 
with  His  character,  and  which  He  would 
never  even  have  conceived. 

Needless  to  say,  our  Lord's  promise  to  the 
penitent  thief  on  the  Cross  that  he  should 
be  with  Him  that  day  in  Paradise,  rules  out 
any  right  on  the  part  of  the  Spiritualists  to 
claim  Christ  as  a  reincarnationist.  Indeed, 
there  is  not  a  tittle  of  evidence  to  show  that 
the  doctrine  of  reincarnation  is  in  any  way 
alluded  to  in  the  Scriptures ;  and,  in  all  prob- 
ability, it  owes  its  foundation  to  nothing  more 
substantial  than  sheer  craving  for  novelty; 
anyhow,  it  is  such  an  outrage  on  common 
sense,  in  its  utter  disregard  of  such  impor- 
tant factors  as  heredity  and  the  increase  of 
population,  that  no  one  would  dream  of  tak- 
ing it  seriously,  were  it  not  unhappily  true 
that  there  are  a  great  many  people — weak- 
kneed  Christians  of  little  sound  judgment  or 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  57 

logic — who  are  easily  influenced  by  the  shal- 
low, persuasive  oratory  characteristic  of  so 
many  of  the  leading  Spiritualists  and  Theoso- 
phists,  and  that  the  latter  without  scruple 
try  to  destroy  faith  in  Christianity,  which  is 
by  far  the  noblest  and  most  consoling  creed 
the  world  has  ever  known,  and  offer  in  its 
stead  their  fanciful  and  high-falutin'  hotch- 
potch known  as  Spiritualism  and  Theosophy. 
It  is,  in  fact,  on  behalf  of  these  more  gullible 
and  unstable  followers  of  Christ — no  matter 
to  what  actual  denomination  they  belong — 
that  a  crusade  against  Spiritualism  and 
Theosophy  is  now  so  urgently  needed. 

It  is  not  the  Cross  that  is  in  danger,  it 
will  never  be  in  danger  so  long  as  the  race 
embraces  men  and  women  possessing  high 
ideals  coupled  with  sound  judgment  and  com- 
mon sense,  but  only  this  one  section  of  so- 
ciety, and  it  is  to  save  both  their  souls  and 
bodies  that  this  challenge  to  their  Spiritual- 
istic seducers  has  gone  forth. 


CHAPTER  IV 

SPIRITUALISM   AND  THE  CHURCHES 

CAMOUFLAGED,  as  the  sinister  attitude  of 
Spiritualists  is  towards  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  under  apparent  attempts  to 
merely  reconcile  the  tenets  of  Spiritualism 
with  those  of  the  Bible,  there  is  no  effort 
whatever  made  to  disguise  the  malicious  in- 
tentions of  Spiritualists  towards  the 
Churches,  which  they  never  miss  an  oppor- 
tunity of  attacking.  No  worse  offender  in 
this  respect  could  be  found  than  Dr.  Peebles. 
After  describing — in  a  pamphlet  entitled 
* '  Christianity,  Churchianity  or  Spiritualism ' ' 
(p.  18) — a  seance  he  attended,  at  which  a  cer- 
tain Mr.  Withal  made  the  remarkable  but  not 
very  modest  statement  that  he  had  come  into 
psychic  relations  with  "a  very  exalted" 
spirit  who  lived  bodily  at  the  same  time  as 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  after  expressing  his 
admiration  at  the  said  Mr.  WithaPs  calm  and 
dignified  style  (people  who  make  such 

58 


THE  CHURCHES  59 

astounding  assertions  as  Mr.  Withal  need  a 
little  calmness  to  carry  them  through),  Dr. 
Peebles  proceeds — in  a  manner  that  shows  he 
himself  is  wanting  in  that  very  quality  he 
apparently  admires  so  much  in  others, 
namely,  dignity — to  launch  into  a  most  violent 
unrestrained  attack  on  the  Churches.  He  be- 
gins by  telling  us  that,  under  the  Churchian- 
ity  of  Roman  Constantine  and  his  bishops, 
etc.,  blood,  due  to  persecution,  began  to  flow 
"in  crimson  currents,"  and  proceeds  to 
comment  on  the  "two  millions"  of  human 
lives  lost  in  the  Crusades,  the  massacre  of  St. 
Bartholomew's  Day,  and  the  Edict  of  Feb- 
ruary 15th,  1568,  whereby,  he  alleges,  the 
Holy  Office  of  Romanism  condemned  all  the 
inhabitants  of  The  Netherlands  to  be  put  to 
death  as  heretics.  It  is  not  only  the  Catho- 
lics, however,  who  come  in  for  his  denuncia- 
tion, for  on  page  20  he  says  ".  .  .  at  later 
date  John  Calvin,  Beza,  and  other  sectarian 
bigots  wrote  books  and  pamphlets  defending 
the  right  and  lawfulness  of  religious  perse- 
cutions," and  (on  same  page)  "John  Knox 
of  Scotland,  appealing  to  the  Word  of  God, 
declared  that  'Those  guilty  of  idolatry  and 
heresy  should  be  put  to  death.'  "  Further 


60         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

on  he  graciously  allows  that  Roman  Catholics 
and  Protestants,  " alternating  in  power," 
slaughter  each  other. 

After  haranguing  what  he  is  pleased  to 
term  Churchianity  in  this  rather  crude  and 
elementary  fashion,  apparently  oblivious  of 
the  fact  that  butchery  was  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  Christian  countries,  but  was  going 
on — as  it  is  periodically  now,  in  spite  of 
united  Christian  effort — all  over  the  world, 
quite  as  much,  if  not  more,  among  races  who 
had  no  orthodox  denominational  creeds,  as 
among  those  who  had,  Dr.  Peebles  blossoms 
out  into  verse.  For  example,  on  page  21,  we 
find  this  couplet: 

"Praise  God  from  Whom  all  blessings  flow 
Three  thousand  Frenchmen  sent  helow," 

which  he  informs  us  was  sung  in  Berlin — 
presumably  in  1870 — after  a  victory  over  the 
French  by  united  bands  of  "Catholic  and 
Protestant"  citizens  parading  the  streets. 
After  the  late  Great  War  one  cannot,  of 
course,  be  surprised  at  anything  Huns  may 
have  done,  but  one  wonders  whether  in  the 
ranks  of  those  united  bands  of  citizens  Dr. 
Peebles  refers  to  there  may  not  have  been  a 


THE  CHURCHES  61 

few  German  Spiritualists.  How  can  he 
vouch  for  the  fact  that  they  consisted  entirely 
of  Catholics  and  Protestants? 

Dr.  Peebles,  however,  allows  his  animus 
against  the  Churches  to  carry  him  from  bad 
to  worse,  for  after  informing  us  that  all  the 
persecutions  and  bloody  wars  (I  presume  he 
would  say  the  same  of  the  late  greatest  of 
all  wars)  he  has  specified  were  the  legitimate 
outcome  of  orthodox  theology,  he  concludes 
with  the  scathing  declaration  that  "The 
orthodox  theology  of  salvation  through  blood, 
the  blood  of  our  ancient  Jew,  is  still  preached 
in  our  orthodox  pulpits. " 

In  order,  perhaps  to  preserve  some 
semblance  of  artistic  balance,  the  author, 
after  such  a  thick  laying  on  of  blackness, 
thinks  it  necessary  to  afford  us  some  relief, 
and,  consequently,  proceeds  to  discuss  the 
merits  of  Spiritualism,  which  he  valiantly  en- 
deavors to  show  is  superior  in  every  way  to 
"  Churchianity. "  Crudely  and  unusually 
spiteful,  however,  as  these  attacks  of  Dr. 
Peebles  on  the  Churches  must  seem  to  most 
impartial  people,  they  are,  as  I  have  said, 
merely  samples  of  the  methods  employed  by 
many  other  Spiritualists.  Mr.  John  Lobb  in 


62         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

his  " Talks  with  the  Dead"  tells  us  that  the 
spirit  of  the  late  Rev.  William  Rogers,  or 
"Hang  Theology  Rogers,"  as  Mr.  Lobb 
terms  him  (p.  113),  comes  back  on  purpose  to 
let  us  all  know  that  "Creeds  and  dogmas  find 
no  favor  on  the  other  side, ' '  whilst  in  a  para- 
graph headed  "The  Christian  Church  To- 
day" the  same  author  remarks,  "The  Chris- 
tian Church  to-day  fails  to  arrest  the  atten- 
tion or  command  the  respect  of  the  world  to 
whom  they  preach:  their  words  fall  dead 
without  the  proof  of  works ' ' ;  and  a  few  lines 
further  on,  "The  power  of  the  Spirit  has  for- 
saken the  Church  of  to-day."  These  obser- 
vations not  unnaturally  lead  one  to  inquire 
whether  the  author  considers  the  power  of 
the  Spirit  has  forsaken  the  Churches  for 
Spiritualism,  and  whether  he  honestly  be- 
lieves the  latter  commands  the  respect  of  the 
world,  because,  if  so,  he  could  surely  have 
afforded  us  better  instances  in  support  of  his 
views  than  those  of  spirits  returning  to  this 
earth  merely  for  the  purpose  of  playing  such 
foolish  tricks  as  putting  sweets  in  people's 
mouths,  thumping  on  tables,  and  dropping 
fish  from  the  ceiling.  Such  phenomena 
surely  must  refute  the  idea  that  the  "Power 


THE  CHURCHES  63 

of  the  Spirit"  is  to  be  found  in  Spiritualism, 
or  that  Spiritualism  commands  the  respect 
of  anything  like  so  large  a  portion  of  hu- 
manity as  the  world. 

Indeed,  all  Mr.  Lobb's  intended  biting 
criticism  of  the  Churches  could  be  responded 
to — were  it  worth  while — with,  perhaps, 
greater  vigor  and  certainly  far  more  truth. 

Mr.  Leon  Denis  in  "  Christianity  and 
Spiritualism"  is  condescending  enough  to 
admit  (pp.  27-28)  that  the  thoughts  of  Christ 
still  live  in  the  teachings  of  the  Church,  but 
that  they  are  dished  up  in  a  very  adulterated 
form,  owing  to  the  desire  of  such  ecclesiastics 
as  Popes,  etc.,  "to  fortify  and  render  ab- 
solute the  authority  of  the  Church." 

To  this,  of  course,  the  natural  reply  is — if 
the  teachings  of  the  Churches  is,  possibly,  a 
combination  of  Divine  tenets  and  accessories 
introduced  by  theologians,  what  about  Spirit- 
ualism which  is,  unquestionably,  a  medley  of 
Babylonian  Paganism,  diluted  Chaldean  and 
other  kinds  of  necromancy,  gnosticism,  Rosi- 
crucianism,  Buddhism,  Theosophy,  Unitar- 
ianism,  and  a  dozen  and  one  other  isms,  which 
help  to  make  it  a  most  unsavory  and  indi- 
gestible mess.  Spiritualists  should  be  re- 


64         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

minded  very  strongly  that  before  throwing 
dirty  water  at  other  people,  they  should  first 
look  to  their  own  house.  After  speaking  thus 
sneeringly  of  Theologians,  Mr.  Leon  Denis 
continues  (p.  28)  in  this  strain: 

"It  is  by  the  aid  of  the  light  of  this  new  revelation, 
both  scientific  and  philosophical,  which  has  already 
spread  throughout  the  whole  world,  under  the  name  of 
modern  Spiritualism,  that  we  will  seek  to  free  the  doc- 
trine of  Jesus  from  the  obscurity  in  which  the  work 
of  centuries  has  enveloped  it." 

Having  thus  excited  our  curiosity  and  raised 
our  expectations  mountains  high  to  know 
how  Spiritualism  purposes  to  achieve  a  task, 
in  which  Mr.  Denis  delicately  suggests  the 
Churches  have  failed,  he  proceeds  to  let  us 
down  badly  by  stating  that  the  method 
Spiritualism  intends  to  employ  is  that  of  "an 
imposing  train  of  experimental  proofs," 
which  will  furthermore  prove  that  Spirit- 
ualism and  primitive  Christianity  are  identi- 
cal. 

Now  the  experimental  proofs  which  Mr. 
Leon  Denis  would  use  for  this  purpose  must 
be  the  phenomena  produced  by  such  mediums 
as  Eglington,  H.P.B.,  Eusapia  Palladino, 


THE  CHURCHES  65 

and  present-day  birds  of  the  same  feather — 
there  are  no  other — therefore  it  is  obviously 
by  these  phenomena,  proved  to  be  fallacious, 
that  the  wonderful  scientific  and  philosophic 
cult  of  Spiritualism  seeks  to  eclipse  the 
Church;  to  demonstrate,  beyond  the  shadow 
of  a  doubt,  that  Christ  was  simply  an  ordi- 
nary medium,  that  the  hidden  meaning  which 
they — and  they  only — attribute  to  His  Gos- 
pels, are  mere  common  or  garden  secrets  of 
Spiritualism  (secrets  with  which  all  the  initi- 
ates of  that  creed  are  familiar),  and  that 
Spritualism  and  the  earliest  form  of  Chris- 
tianity— Christ's  Christianity,  as  distinct 
from  the  Church's  Christianity — are  identi- 
cal. Unfortunately  for  Spiritualism,  how- 
ever, despite  the  patronage  of  a  few  such  em- 
inent scientists  as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Sir 
W.  F.  Barrett,  the  late  Sir  William  Crookes 
(this  patronage,  I  suppose,  accounts  for  the 
dubbing  of  the  cult — scientific),  the  bubble  of 
mediumship  has  been  too  mercilessly  pricked 
for  the  common-sense  man-in-the-street  to 
place  much  confidence  in  what  is  left,  and  it 
will  take  something  far  more  subtle  and  con- 
vincing than  any  of  the  spirit  phenomena,  or 
to  give  them  their  more  appropriate  name, 


66         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

''spirit  stunts,"  that  we  have  lately  seen  to 
induce  the  main  body  of  Churchmen  to  dis- 
card their  old  faith  in  a  sanctified  Christ  and 
adopt  the  mere  caricature  of  Divinity  Spirit- 
ualists proffer  in  its  stead. 

•Spiritualists  mockingly  remark  that  the 
Church  has  failed,  but  do  they  honestly  think 
that  Spiritualism  either  has  succeeded,  or  can 
succeed,  in  the  future.  Its  phenomenal  side 
— the  side  on  which  it  so  largely  depends — is 
at  the  present  moment  more  debatable  than 
ever.  Professional  medium  after  medium 
has  been  exposed,  and  many  of  those  who 
have  escaped  so  far  may  not  unreasonably 
be  deemed  to  owe  their  present  security  to 
the  West  End  patronage  they  have  been  lucky 
enough  to  secure.  Still  their  turn  may  come, 
and  further  striking  demonstrations  of  the 
hyper-credulity  of  certain  of  the  most  emi- 
nent scientists,  to  whose  recommendation  they 
owe  so  much,  may,  even  yet,  be  forthcoming. 
Despite  its  boasts  to  the  contrary,  the 
foundations  of  Spiritualism  are  unstable  in 
the  extreme,  and,  in  my  opinion,  a  slight 
breeze — let  alone  a  searching  wind — would 
bring  the  whole  fabric  to  the  ground. 

To  revert  to  its  claims  of  success.    We 


THE  CHURCHES  67 

have  seen,  I  think,  that  they  cannot  possibly 
be  said  to  rest  on  its  alleged  spiritual  phe- 
nomena; hence,  I  suppose,  it  is  to  the  doc- 
trinal side  of  the  cult  that  we  must  look  for 
them.  But  what  do  we  find  here !  Long  dis- 
sertations on  love  and  brotherhood.  Spirit- 
ualism is  declared  to  be  a  kind  of  free- 
masonry that  knits  together  not  only  the 
hearts  of  men,  but  their  souls,  a  freemasonry 
consisting  of  a  much  more  poignant  and  dur- 
able bond  of  love  than  that  advocated  and 
practiced  by  other  creeds.  It  is  also  de- 
clared to  be  a  bond  of  love  and  brotherhood 
which  is  not  confined  to  this  material  plane; 
on  the  contrary,  in  accordance  with  the  prin- 
ciple of  progress  and  evolution  (evolution  is 
apparently  one  of  the  fundamentals  of  the 
doctrine  of  Spiritualism),  its  practices  are 
carried  on  in  the  spiritual  world,  where 
marriages  are  said  to  take  place  as  they  do 
on  earth. 

In  this  connection  it  would  be  as  well,  per- 
haps, to  remind  Spiritualists  that  words 
only  do  not  make  character,  any  more  than 
mere  tenets,  of  necessity,  lead  to  practice. 
It  is  doubtless  very  pleasant  to  be  able  to 
imagine  oneself  transported  to  the  very 


68         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

highest  spiritual  planes — planes  from  which 
so  many — perhaps  all — of  your  friends  are 
hopelessly  barred;  and  extremely  gratifying 
to  be  able  to  assure  those  who  flock  in  hun- 
dreds to  listen  to  your  alleged  psychic  ex- 
ploits, that  you  have  been  to  far-off  realms 
and  seen  celestial  visions,  which  are  not  for 
the  rank  and  file,  but  reserved  for  the  great- 
est and  wisest  of  the  initiates  of  Spiritual- 
ism only.  Perhaps  it  is  this  mood  that  Mr. 
Leon  Denis  has  in  mind  when  he  refers  to 
the  philosophic  side  of  Spiritualism.  But 
it  is  a  mood  hardly  in  keeping  with  that  spirit 
of  love  and  fraternity  breathed  out  so  often 
from  Spiritualistic  pulpits,  and  referred  to 
so  constantly  in  Spiritualistic  pamphlets; 
and  it  is  not  altogether  in  harmony  with  the 
doctrine  of  humility  preached -in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  which  Spiritualists  are  so  fond 
of  holding  up  as  a  much-needed  example  to 
theologians  and  churchgoers.  However,  as 
it  is  undoubtedly  the  spirit  blatantly  observ- 
able in  about  ninety-nine  per  cent  of  Spirit- 
ualists, it  makes  one  wonder  if,  after  all,  they 
are  the  big  success  they  believe  themselves  to 
be.  Surely  the  success  of  a  creed  is — or 
should  be — gauged  by  the  effect  it  has  on 


THE  CHURCHES  69 

moral  character.  Now  I  can  call  to  mind  no 
instance  of  Spiritualism  having  produced 
any  particularly  great  moralist  or  philan- 
thropist. I  have  from  time  to  time  come 
across  many  people  professing  this  creed, 
but  so  far,  not  one  of  them  has  exhibited 
any  very  lovable  quality  or  any  very  special 
virtue.  On  the  contrary,  by  far  the  major- 
ity of  those  Spiritualists  with  whom  I  have 
come  in  contact,  have  been  indisputably 
egotistical,  self-opinionated,  arrogant,  con- 
ceited, absolutely  self-satisfied  and  extremely 
dogmatic.  All  the  failings,  in  fact,  that  they 
so  generously  attribute  to  churchgoers  they 
themselves  possess — and  possess  in  an  al- 
most unlimited  degree.  Nor  am  I  alone  in 
this  opinion.  My  verdict  is  only  that  of 
numbers  of  others — outsiders  one  may  say 
(I,  niyself,  am  an  undenominational  Chris- 
tian), but  then  you  must  remember  that  it  is 
the  outsider  who  sees  most  of  the  game,  and 
consequently  it  is  the  outsider  who  is  best 
able  to  judge.  Inasmuch  then  as  Spiritual- 
ism cannot  possibly  be  said  to  have  an  elevat- 
ing effect  on  character,  and  may  very  justly 
be  said  to  have  the  reverse,  I  fail  to  see  how 
it  can  be  described  as  anything  whatever  in 


70         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

the  nature  of  a  success,  unless  it  be  a  success 
for  the  Powers  inimical  to  the  genuine  ad- 
vancement and  moral  welfare  of  the  human 
race. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Churches  are  not  al- 
together undeserving  of  criticism.  The  ac- 
cusation of  narrow-mindedness  and  lack  of 
sympathy  that  (Spiritualists  and  others  have 
leveled  against  them  is  not  wholly  without 
substance.  They — especially  those  that  have 
temporarily  wielded  the  most  power — have 
been  autocratic  and  dictatorial,  paying  too 
little  heed  to  the  great  example  set  them  by 
the  gentle,  Divine  Being  they  have  all  made 
pretense  of  imitating.  Assuredly  the  great- 
est worth  of  Christianity  lies  in  the  heed  it 
bestows  on  spiritual  and  moral  progress,  and 
the  greatest  care  should  always  be  taken  to 
see  that  candidates  offering  themselves  for 
Holy  Orders  have  the  moral  and  spiritual 
progress  of  mankind  at  heart.  Very  ob- 
viously this  has  not  always  been  the  case,  and 
incalculable  harm  has  been  inflicted  on  the 
cause  of  the  Churches — of  all  Christian  de- 
nominations— because  in  a  matter  like  this 
the  careless  public  does  not  differentiate — 
through  men  taking  Holy  Orders  solely  for 


THE  CHURCHES  71 

the  sake  of  bettering  their  social  position; 
or — as  so  often  happens — leading  a  slack  life 
on  a  comparatively  large  stipend  in  some 
quiet  country  village ;  where,  in  such  counties 
as  Northamptonshire,  Leicestershire  and 
Devon,  hunting  forms  an  additional  attrac- 
tion. Hunting  parsons  are  often  jocularly 
referred  to  as  good  "sports,"  but  the  person 
who  speaks  thus  lightly  of  a  priest  or  min- 
ister, if  he  ever  thinks  at  all,  does  not  think 
of  the  welfare  of  the  Christian  Churches.  It 
ill  befits  a  pledged  disciple  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  who  was  the  quintessence  of  all 
that  was  kindly  and  decorous,  to  be  seen,  in- 
spired by  cruel  motives,  and  often  three- 
quarters  drunk,  careering  madly  on  bareback 
across  fields  in  pursuit  of  a  small  and  defense- 
less animal. 

The  Church  of  Christ  is  not  for  such  men 
as  these,  their  proper  vocation  in  life  is  to 
serve  behind  the  pot-house  bar,  or  as  a 
marker  in  a  billiard  saloon,  where  their 
coarse  jest  and  often  blasphemous  jokes 
would  fall  on  no  shocked  ears. 

Certainly  the  Churches  need  reforming, 
and  no  one  knows  this  better  than  the  priest- 
hood themselves,  but  the  powers  that  be 


72         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

move  slowly,  and  many  years  may  elapse  be- 
fore such  a  purging  and  purification,  as  alone 
can  be  of  any  real  benefit  to  the  cause  of 
Christ,  can  be  effected.  Let  us  hope  it  will 
be  sooner  than  I,  for  one,  anticipate.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  the  Churches  have  seemed,  at 
times,  merely  a  cloak  for  black  sheep,  it  is 
also  equally  true  that  they  have  been  the  gen- 
erating instrument  of  many  of  the  greatest 
moralists  and  public  benefactors  the  world 
has  ever  produced.  With  all  their  faults  the 
Christian  Churches  have  been  proved  to  pos- 
sess many  virtues ;  and  it  has  been  shown  that 
they  have  exercised  a  restraining  and  enno- 
bling influence  on  the  masses,  such  as  has 
certainly  never  been  exercised  by  any  other 
creed,  and  which  neither  Spiritualism  nor 
Theosophy  have  ever  given  the  slightest 
sign  of  emulating. 

We  have  now  seen — in  brief — the  attitude 
of  Spiritualism  towards  the  Churches.  Let 
us  now  review — also  in  brief — the  attitude  of 
the  Churches  towards  Spiritualism. 

Whilst  all  the  Churches  are,  perhaps, 
equally  emphatic  in  their  disapproval  of 
Spiritualism  as  a  whole,  they  differ  some- 
what in  their  views  regarding  its  various 


THE  CHURCHES  73 

tenets.  Most  Protestants,  for  example,  do 
not  admit  even  the  possibility  of  spirits  of 
any  kind,  no  matter  whether  of  the  dead  or 
of  those  that  have  never  been  in  the  flesh, 
responding  to  the  call  of  living  beings  and 
perpetrating  the  phenomena  attributed  to 
them.  They  declare — and  I  think  with 
reason — that  it  is  time  enough  to  talk  of 
spirit  influence  being  present  at  seances, 
when  we  have  first  of  all  eliminated  all  possi- 
bility of  fraud  and  other  natural — though, 
perhaps,  at  present  unknown — physical 
causes. 

With  regard  to  this  same  question, 
Catholics,  on  the  other  hand,  do  not  commit 
themselves  to  any  very  decided  statements. 
While  admitting  the  possibility  of  the  return 
of  the  dead  under  very  rare  occasions  and 
with  some  very  specific  reason,  as,  for  in- 
stance, in  the  case  of  Samuel  and  the  witch 
of  Endor,  they  do  not  consider  it  at  all  likely 
that  the  blessed  dead  would  come  back  for 
the  trivial  purpose  of  manifesting  at  a 
seance.  They  believe  that  other  spirits 
might  respond  to  the  invitation  of  mediums, 
but  that  all  such  spirits  would  be  evil  and  of 
the  same  type  as  the  demons  in  the  Bible. 


74         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

They   express,    however,    no    definite   judg- 
ment as  to  the  nature  of  the  phenomena,  or 
whether  they  are  produced  through  physical 
or  super-physical  agency,  but  both  they  and 
the   Protestant   Churches   roundly  condemn 
Spiritualism  as  being  in  total  opposition  to 
the     Divine     Will.     The     Eoman     Catholic 
Church  of  the  two  is,  perhaps,  the  more  in- 
clined to  confine  its  condemnation  of  Spirit- 
ualism to  theological  grounds.     It  not  un- 
naturally unites  with  all  other  denominations 
in   desiring  to  protect  its   followers   from 
fraud  and  charlatanism,  which  it  considers 
may  possibly  take  place  at  seances,  but  it 
views  the  matter  more  seriously  from  the 
religious  standpoint.     First  of  all,  the  Catho- 
lic Church  regards  any  attempt  whatever  at 
communication    with    the    spirit    world,    in 
other  than  the  form  of  prayer  set  down  in 
her  liturgy  and  based  on  the  precepts  of  the 
New  Testament,  as  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
Divine  Will,  and  thinks  it  Her  right  to  warn 
Her  children  strongly  against  such  practices. 
She  has  a  strong  basis  for  her  objections  in 
certain  passages  in  the  Bible  to  which  I  have 
already  referred.     She  is  fully  aware  that 
Spiritualists  triumphantly  point  to  the  fact 


THE  CHURCHES  75 

that  many  of  the  saints  had  visions,  but  she 
wishes  to  emphasize  the  point  that  the 
visions  of  the  saints  came  to  them  quite  spon- 
taneously, i.  e.,  without  being  sought,  and,  for 
that  reason,  cannot  in  any  way  be  placed  in 
the  same  category  with  the  trances  of  the  so- 
called  mediums. 

The  Churches,  one  and  all  of  course,  utterly 
condemn  the  attempts  made  by  the  Spirit- 
ualists to  liken  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles, 
as  well  as  the  chosen  of  God  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, to  present-day  mediums — their  line  of 
argument  being,  I  believe,  very  much  the 
same  as  that  which  I  adopted  when  dealing 
with  the  question  in  a  previous  chapter. 

Furthermore,  the  Catholic  Church,  besides 
looking  upon  the  mere  holding  of  Spiritual- 
istic seances  as  quite  contrary  to  Christ's 
teachings,  also  regards  all  such  seances  as 
a  source  of  the  utmost  peril  to  those  who  par- 
take" in  them.  She  believes  that  both  medi- 
ums and  sitters,  in  courting  intercourse  with 
the  other  world,  open  a  door  to  spiritual 
forces  of  a  nature  that  is  totally  unknown  to 
them,  and  which,  in  all  probability,  would  be 
of  an  entirely  evil  origin ;  but  no  matter  from 
what  source  these  forces  emanate,  inasmuch 


76         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

as  "evocation"  is  in  direct  opposition  to 
Divine  Will,  the  Catholic  Church  believes  no 
response  can  be  productive  of  any  good,  but 
may  very  easily  lead  to  a  degeneration  of  the 
morals  and  faith  in  Christianity  of  those 
who  participate  in  the  proceedings. 

Lastly,  the  teachings  of  the  Catholic 
Church  are  utterly  antagonistic  to  the  idea 
of  any  spirit  being  so  much  at  the  mercy  of 
a  human  being  as  to  have  to — for  that  is 
what  it  practically  amounts  to — repeatedly 
respond  to  their  beck  and  call. 

These,  I  think,  are  the  main  objections 
from  the  religious  standpoint  that  the  Catho- 
lic Church  entertains  towards  Spiritualism. 
There  are  others,  I  believe,  of  a  purely  theo- 
logical nature,  but,  rather  too  technical  to 
be  dealt  with  here.  Most  of  them,  including 
those  I  have  already  touched  upon,  seem  to 
be  logical  and  moderate,  and  will,  I  think, 
find  favor  with  many  who,  like  myself,  are 
merely  undenominational  Christians. 

Indeed,  the  Churches  on  the  whole  would 
seem  to  have  acted  with  great  restraint  and 
to  have  shown  surprisingly  Jittle  animus 
against  a  body  of  people  (i.  e.,  the  Spiritual- 
ists) who  have  been  doing  their  best  to  un- 


THE  CHURCHES  77 

dermine  faith  in  the  Divine  nature  of  the 
Gospels,  and  to  thin  the  ranks  of  all  denom- 
inational congregations. 

It  may  not  be  without  interest  to  quote 
the  opinions  of  a  variety  of  Church  writers 
on  the  subject,  picked  from  men  of  all  denom- 
inations, and  selected  chiefly  on  account  of 
their  outspokenness,  the  majority  of  such 
writers  being  more  or  less  guarded  and  re- 
served. 

In  a  pamphlet  called  "Spiritualism"  that 
appears  in  a  work  entitled  "Lectures  on  the 
History  of  Religions,"  Vol.  V.  (published 
by  the  Catholic  Truth  Society),  the  Rev. 
R.  H.  Benson  says:  "Spiritualism,  or  Necro- 
mancy, or  the  dealing  with  '  familiar '  spirits, 
has  always  been  regarded  by  the  other  great 
world  religions  as  a  bastard,  rather  than  a 
competitor  with  a  dignity  comparable  with 
their  own."  And  in  another  place  in  the 
same  work  he  remarks,  "For  every  man  that 
is  converted  by  Spiritualism  to  believe  in  the 
immortality  of  his  soul,  there  are  probably 
a  hundred  who  are  led  by  it  to  relinquish  the 
beliefs  and  practices  of  Christianity."  And 
in  still  a  third  place, ' 1  So  far  as  Spiritualism 
has  produced  a  coherent  creed  at  all,  it 


78         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

directly  traverses  even  such  fundamental 
doctrines  as  that  of  the  Incarnation."  It 
takes  little  deduction  from  these  lines  to 
arrive  at  the  inevitable  conclusion  that  the 
late  Monsignor  Benson  was  wholly  opposed 
to  Spiritualism. 

Equally  emphatic  is  the  Rev.  Winfrid  0. 
Burrows,  M.A.,  Vicar  of  Holy  Trinity, 
Leeds,  who  in  a  pamphlet  entitled  "The 
Churchman's  Attitude  towards  the  Spirit- 
ualists" (published  by  the  Society  for 
Promoting  Christian  Knowledge,  1900)  says : 
"The  Christian  who  believes  in  our  Lord, 
and  uses  his  Bible  as  his  guide,  will  feel  that 
he  cannot  neglect  the  Church  of  Christ  for 
Spiritualist  Meetings";  and  again:  "The 
strange  freaks  of  the  Spiritualists  seem,  with 
rare  exceptions,  to  have  no  moral  meaning, 
and  to  be  mere  marvels  intended  to  rouse 
curiosity  and  attract  attention.  Such  dis- 
plays as  these  our  Lord  always  refused  to 
work."  And  still  again — "It  (Spiritualism) 
has  no  message  of  hope.  It  contains  no  word 
about  repentance  or  conversion,  regeneration, 
or  renewal.  It  leaves  the  victim  of  carnal 
passions  without  hope,  except  after  'ashes 
of  remorse.'  "  Quoting  from  a  letter  he  re- 


THE  CHURCHES  79 

ceived  from  the  Eev.  J.  R.  Illingworth,  Mr. 
Burrows  writes:  "It  is  called  Spiritualism, 
but  it  is  in  fact  materialism — an  attempt  to 
return  to  what  St.  Paul  calls  carnal,  and 
keeps  us  back,  if  anything,  from  securing 
true  union  with  our  blessed  dead,  by  really 
spiritual  means,  viz.,  complete  life  in  God." 
Written  rather  long  ago,  but  still  fully  ap- 
plicable to  these  times,  for  neither  Spirit- 
ualism nor  the  Churches'  attitude  towards 
it  have  changed  to  any  very  appreciable  ex- 
tent, is  a  pamphlet  called  "Spiritualism. 
Tested  by  Scripture,"  written  by  the  Rev. 
A.  R.  Fausset,  M.A.,  in  1885,  and  published 
by  the  Church  of  England  Book  Society. 
In  it  the  author  says:  "Since  Spiritualism 
opposes  many  of  the  fundamental  doctrines 
of  the  written  Word  of  God,  it  cannot  be 
from  God";  and  further  on,  "It  is  contrary 
to  all  probability  that  holy  angels  would 
stoop  from  Heaven  to  such  low,  trivial  and 
even  blasphemous  manifestations,  or  that 
saved  souls  with  Christ  should  come  for  such 
calls;  or  the  lost  be  allowed  to  leave  their 
prison  to  gratify  man's  forbidden  curiosity." 
And,  after  quoting  Ecclesiastes  ix.  6,  in 
support  of  such  views,  he  continues — 


80         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

11  The  spirit  manifestations  can  only  emanate 
from  the  Prince  of  the  powers  of  the  air, 
the  spirit  which  ruleth  in  the  children  of  dis- 
obedience." On  another  page  he  remarks, 
"  Simultaneously,  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
and  the  science  of  comparative  religion  are 
undermining  the  exclusive  authority  of  the 
Bible,  as  the  only  infallible  revelation  from 
God."  Elsewhere  in  the  same  work  (p.  15) 
we  read :  * '  Consulters  of  the  dead  are  sorcer- 
ers," and  "  sorcery  and  necromancy  are 
among  the  foretold  signs  of  the  last  days," 
1  Timothy  iv.  1;  and  again  (p.  13),  "  Spirit- 
ualism accords  with  the  old  Babylonian 
pagan  doctrine  of  seven  spheres." 

The  same  author  gives  the  following  ex- 
tract from  a  letter  sent  him  by  a  minister  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Auckland,  New 
Zealand.  "Manifestations  have  often  been 
counterfeited,"  the  minister  says,  "from 
mercenary  and  other  unworthy  motives,  but 
there  are  real  manifestations,"  and  he 
goes  on  to  state,  "I  have  abandoned  the 
practice  of  holding  intercourse  with  these  un- 
known agencies,  which  I  have  been  led  to  con- 
clude are  demoniacal..  Besides  the  unreli- 
ability of  the  communications,  I  have  found 


THE  CHURCHES  81 

them  sometimes  shockingly  blasphemous  and 
vulgar  in  the  extreme.  Spiritualism  has  ex- 
cited a  painful  effect  on  even  ministers  known 
to  me,"  and  Mr.  Fausset  goes  on  to  explain 
that  in  numerous  cases  the  result  of  Spirit- 
ualistic dealings  has  been  insanity. 

Nor  is  the  above  case  the  only  one  I  can 
quote  of  ministers  who  have  dabbled  in 
Spiritualism  finally  awaking  to  the  fact  that 
it  is  really  very  dangerous.  The  Brooklyn 
Eagle  some  years  ago  contained  a  report  of 
a  lecture  delivered  by  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Clagett, 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the 
Texas  Presbyterian  University,  in  the  Asso- 
ciation Hall  of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  Dr.  Clagett 
was  once  a  Spiritualist,  but  the  following 
extracts  from  his  speech  will  show  to  what 
an  extent  his  opinions  on  the  subject  changed, 
and  what  a  revulsion  of  feeling  he  experi- 
enced in  connection  with  it. 

"I  was  a  firm  believer  in  it  (Spiritual- 
ism)/' he  says,  "for  years,  often  acting  as  a 
medium  in  private  seances.  There  is  a 
deeper  interest  in  this  question  than  many 
Christians  think.  Spiritualism  is  one  of  the 
greatest  powers  for  evil  in  the  world." 
And  again — "I  believe  there  is  such  a  thing 


82         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

as  communication  between  men  and  spirits. 
Satan,  in  the  form  of  Spiritualism,  offers  to 
bring  the  loved  one  back  again  so  that  we  can 
hear  his  voice  and  actually  see  his  face.  .  .  . 
By  attacking  the  soul  in  this  subtle  and 
plausible  manner  it  is  not  strange  that  Satan 
in  the  form  of  Spiritualism  leads  many 
astray."  But  though  Dr.  Clagett  expresses 
his  belief  in  the  possibility  of  spirits — evil 
spirits — being  present  at  seances,  he  also  be- 
lieves in  the  extreme  probability  of  fraud. 
"To  think,"  he  observes,  "of  a  wife  or 
mother,  even  if  she  could  communicate  with 
us  on  earth,  going  to  a  woman  whom  she 
never  knew  and  with  whom  she  would  not 
have  associated  if  she  had,  and  telling  her  the 
most  sacred  things — the  idea  is  degrading 
and  a  dishonor.  Spiritualism  is  a  fraud, 
two-thirds  of  it  being  devil  at  second-hand, 
and  the  rest  of  it  devil  at  first  hand."  These 
remarks  of  Dr.  Clagett  should,  I  think,  ap- 
peal to  all  lovers  of  common  sense.  I,  for 
one,  am  quite  certain  that  neither  my  mother 
nor  father,  who  have  both  passed  over,  no 
matter  how  fond  of  me,  would  ever  dream 
of  trying  to  deliver  a  message  to  me  through 
the  medium  of  a  professional  Spiritualist 


THE  CHURCHES  83 

and  in  the  presence  of  complete  strangers, 
even  though  these  strangers  were  eminent 
members  of  the  Psychical  Research  Society, 
out,  as  they  profess  to  be,  solely  in  the  inter- 
est of  science.  No,  if  it  were  possible  to  com- 
municate at  all,  I  am  quite  sure  they  would 
communicate  direct,  and  not  through  the 
agency  of  any  other  living  person,  least  of 
all  one  with  whom  they  would  have  had  abso- 
lutely nothing  in  common  when  alive.  The 
plea  that  it  is  only  so-called  mediums  who 
possess  the  psychic  faculties  requisite  for 
such  communications  is  undoubtedly  open  to 
question,  for  it  is  quite  certain  that  spirits 
that  manifest  themselves  spontaneously, 
often  do  so  to  people  having  no  claim  what- 
ever to  these  alleged  special  properties,  and 
I  am  inclined — after  many  years '  experience, 
too — to  agree  with  Dr.  Clagett  that  Spirit- 
ualism is  a  fraud,  the  bulk  of  the  so-called 
phenomena  being  merely  due  to  trickery  on 
the  part  of  mediums,  and  the  rest  either 
to  some  subtler,  comparatively  unknown 
natural  causes,  or  to  a  spirit  agency  entirely 
different  from  that  which  it  usually  purports 
to  be.  The  fact  that  the  messages  or  visions 
are  sometimes  of  an  apparently  celestial  na- 


84         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

ture  is  no  proof  whatever  that  their  origin — 
supposing  they  really  do  come  from  the  spirit 
world — is  Divine.  The  fairest  flower  to  look 
at  not  infrequently  contains  the  deadliest 
poison,  and  drugs  that  smell  and  taste  the 
sweetest  are  often  the  most  injurious  to  the 
system.  That  which  is  the  most  harmful  to 
man  can  assume  any  guise. 

In  a  book  entitled  "The  Powers  of  the 
Air,"  the  author,  who  was  once  a  medium, 
declares  he  once  came  under  the  control  of 
a  spirit  which  professed  to  be  the  Almighty 
and  actually  hoodwinked  him  into  believing 
that  he — the  medium — was  specially  ordained 
to  redeem  the  world.  To  use  the  author's 
own  language :  ' '  The  spirit  then  went  on  to 
say,  'I  have  chosen  you  to  be  my  second 
Christ;  I  have  appointed  Jesus,  my  son,  to 
instruct  you  and  make  you  wise  in  all  things 
— to  do  my  will  in  the  great  work  of  man's 
salvation.'  "  The  author,  so  he  relates,  con- 
tinued obeying  the  devil's  instructions,  firmly 
believing  in  the  Divinity  it  professed,  until 
foretold  events  so  frequently  turned  out  in 
direct  opposition  to  prophecy,  and  he  met 
with  such  constant  failure  and  disappoint- 


THE  CHURCHES  85 

ment,  that  his  suspicions  were  aroused  and 
he  finally  came  to  the  conclusion  that  this 
spirit,  far  from  being  what  it  purported  to 
be,  was  something  very  evil.  He  then 
struggled  hard  against  it,  and  eventually — 
though  not  without  desperate  efforts — for 
when  once  you  really  attract  spirit  influence, 
it  is  extremely  reluctant  to  leave  you — com- 
pletely banished  it.  Before  it  took  its  final 
departure,  however,  the  author  extracted 
from  it  a  very  remarkable  confession  which 
he  narrates  in  detail.  Here,  for  example, 
are  some  of  the  questions  he  put  to  it  and  its 
replies : 

Question:  "Are  not  the  doctrines  taught 
generally  by  Spiritualists  denominated  in  the 
Scripture  the  doctrine  of  devils  or  demons?" 

Answer:  "Yes,  they  are,  in  very  deed,  the 
doctrines  of  devils  or  demons,  because  they 
generally  reject  the  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  His  Apostles  and  followers.'* 

Question:  "How  do  the  inhabitants  of 
your  world  mostly  spend  their  time  ? ' ' 

Answer:  "We  spend  the  time,  mostly, 
since  the  discovery  of  the  mediumistic  com- 


86         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

munications,  in  developing  mediums,  in 
making  psychological  experiments  with  them 
and  in  communicating  through  them." 

Question:  "Do  you  not  think  that  good 
spirits  develop  mediums,  and  communicate 
through  them  as  well  as  yourselves?" 

Answer:  "I  think  not:  we  think  we  are 
warranted  in  the  conclusion  that  no  pious 
dead,  nor  the  spirits  of  great  men  made  per- 
fect, nor  angels,  have  anything  to  do  with 
controlling  mediums  at  the  present  day." 

Further  questions  put  to  it  elicited  the  in- 
formation that  evil  spirits  "have  the  power 
to  produce  lifelike  images  in  the  minds  of 
impressible  mediums,"  which  are  often  mis- 
interpreted by  the  latter  into  being  actual 
sights  of  real  objects — or,  in  other  words, 
the  controlling  spirit  influence  makes  the 
medium  mistake  the  purely  subjective  for  the 
objective,  a  mistake  which,  in  my  opinion, 
almost  invaribly  occurs. 

The  author  goes  on  to  explain  from  the  in- 
formation afforded  him  by  his  .  conquered 
"control"  that  spirits,  when  once  invited, 
"have  the  power  of  using  the  human  body, 
with  all  its  organs  and  faculties,"  and  can, 


THE  CHURCHES  87 

in  addition,  and  with  the  assistance  of 
countless  other  spirits,  move  the  weightiest 
of  tables  and  chairs.  The  author  further- 
more tells  us  that  he  received  practical  dem- 
onstrations from  his  "  ex-control "  and  some 
of  its  associate  spirits  of  their  power  to 
imitate  voices,  and  thus  trick  people  into  be- 
lieving they  were  actually  conversing  with 
departed  friends  and  relatives;  and  he  sums 
up  all  his  experiences  with  this  type  of 
seance  and  controlling  spirit  thus:  "They 
delight  in  evil  as  their  object,  and  especially 
that  branch  of  evil  called  deception.  If  any 
one  thing  pleases  them  more  than  any  other, 
it  is  to  make  those  in  the  earth  life  believe 
the  most  monstrous  and  absurd  theories." 

The  International  Bible  Students'  Associ- 
ation, which  has  important  branches  in 
Brooklyn,  London,  Melbourne,  and  many 
other  large  cities,  published  a  very  bitter  and 
vindictive  little  booklet  against  Spiritual- 
ism in  1897.  It  is  entitled  "Spiritism- 
Proofs  that  it  is  Demonish" — and  may  be 
said  to  represent  the  views  of  many 
thousands  of  orthodox  Christians  on  Spirit- 
ualism and  such  kindred  subjects  as  Theos- 
ophy  and  Christian  Science,  some  twenty 


88         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

years  ago.  In  this  work  (p.  81)  we  find  the 
following  extracts  from  a  somewhat  interest- 
ing article  by  the  Rev.  A.  B.  Simpson :  '  *  The 
healing  of  diseases  is  also  said  to  follow  the 
practices  of  Spiritualism  and  Animal  Magnet- 
ism, Clairvoyancy,  etc.  We  will  not  deny 
that  while  some  of  the  manifestations  of 
Spiritualism  are  undoubted  frauds,  there  are 
many  that  are  unquestionably  supernatural, 
and  are  produced  by  forces  for  which  physical 
science  has  no  explanation.  It  is  no  use  to 
try  to  meet  this  terrific  monster  of  Spiritual- 
ism, in  which,  as  Joseph  Cook  says,  is,  per- 
haps, the  great  'if y  of  our  immediate  future 
in  England  and  America,  with  the  hasty  and 
shallow  denial  of  the  facts,  or  their  explana- 
tion as  tricks  of  legerdemain.  They  are 
often  undoubtedly  real  and  superhuman. 
They  are  the  revived  forces  of  the  Egyptian 
magicians,  the  Grecian  oracles,  the  Roman 
haruspices,  the  Indian  medicine  men.'* 

I  have  already  alluded  to  the  fact  that 
many  Spiritualists  constantly  refer  to  God 
as  the  Spirit  of  Love,  and  never  seem  to  tire 
of  emphasizing  the  fact  that  we  should  all 
dwell  together  like  brothers  and  sisters,  and 
love  one  another.  The  love  they  thus  fre- 


THE  CHURCHES  89 

quently  advocate,  however,  is  not  the  love 
advocated  in  the  Bible,  but  rather  the  kind  of 
love  the  Bible  strongly  condemns.  It  is  the 
love  that  recognizes  no  confines  or  restric- 
tions; that  is  purely  unconventional  and 
takes  into  no  account  marriage  laws,  or  the 
ban  society  has  so  rightly  placed  on  un- 
natural friendship.  It  is  free  lance,  an- 
archical love  that,  if  once  permitted  and  en- 
couraged, would  soon  lead  to  utter  social 
chaos,  and  eventually  to  the  hopeless,  whole- 
sale destruction  of  the  race.  And  there  are 
grave  signs  in  England  to-day  that  this  kind 
of  love  is  on  the  increase  and  is  no  longer 
solely  confined  to  one  sex.  Indeed,  I  have 
reason  to  believe  there  are  clubs  and  res- 
taurants in  London  at  the  present  time,  whose 
membership  and  clientele  is  solely  confined  to 
women,  who  meet  there  as  lovers  rather  than 
friends.  These  women  all  profess  to  be  men- 
haters  and  certainly  never  miss  an  opportu- 
nity of  abusing  men  and  doing  everything  they 
possibly  can  to  damage  their  reputation  and 
chances  in  life.  Wives  are  set  against  and 
estranged  from  their  husbands,  sisters 
poisoned  against  their  brothers,  and  I  even 
know  instances  of  mothers  having  been  won 


90         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

over  and  set  against  their  sons.  The 
weapons  generally  employed  are  the  usual 
gags  of  the  advocates  of  women's  suffrage, 
i.e.,  the  unfairness  of  the  marriage  laws  and 
of  paying  men  better  than  women  for  the 
same  amount  of  work  done,  and  the  many  al- 
leged privileges  enjoyed  by  men  that  are  de- 
nied to  women ;  to  which  are  added  various 
other  grievances,  some,  no  doubt,  more  or 
less  real,  and  others  wholly  imaginary,  but 
all,  nevertheless,  very  highly  colored.  This 
anti-men  campaign  was  most  conspicuous 
during  the  Parliamentary  Election  of  the 
winter  of  1919,  and  is  being  pushed  most  em- 
phatically all  over  England  at  the  present 
moment.  Though,  no  doubt,  it  owes  its 
origin  to  some  extent,  at  least,  to  jealousy  and 
unsatisfied  cravings  for  motherhood,  as  well 
as  to  other  more  or  less  natural  causes,  it  also 
receives  much  inspiration  and  obtains  con- 
siderable impetus  from  Spiritualism  and 
Spiritualism's  kindred  cults — Theosophy 
and  Christian  Science. 

It  is  a  fact  that  cannot  be  got  away  from 
that  a  not  inconsiderable  percentage  of 
women  Spiritualists,  Theosophists  and 
Christian  Scientists  are  pronounced  anti- 


THE  CHURCHES  91 

menites.  "We  were  told,"  a  lady  Spiritual- 
ist observed  to  me  some  months  ago,  "at  a 
seance  held  in  our  club,  not  to  have  anything 
to  do  with  men,  that  men  are  all  beasts  and 
tyrants,  and  that  we  must  oppose  them  in 
every  possible  way,  and  try  and  oust  them 
from  all  their  present  positions  of  power  and 
prominence.  We  were  further  told  that 
man's  love  is  a  very  poor  thing  compared 
with  woman's,  and  that  women  should  only 
select  friends  and  confidants  from  among 
their  own  sex. ' '  The  lady  went  on  to  inform 
me  that  the  same  spirit  "control"  had  as- 
sured both  her  and  her  clubmates  that  the 
Creator  was  a  woman  and  not  a  male,  as  one 
had  always  been  led  to  suppose  from  the 
Scriptures,  and  that  the  Divine  feminine 
mind,  which  controlled  everything,  was 
strongly  opposed  to  the  male  sex,  which  it 
regarded  as  the  source  of  all  the  wrongs  for 
which  mankind  in  general  had  suffered.  Now 
one  would  be  inclined  to  regard  all  this 
lightly  were  it  but  an  isolated  example,  but 
unfortunately  it  is  not.  This  same  doc- 
trine of  the  omnipotence  of  the  female 
element  in  the  super-physical  world  and  of  its 
unqualified  antipathy  to  the  male  sex  finds 


92         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

many  women  supporters,  who  are  firm  in 
their  conviction  that  it  emanates  from  bond 
fide  spiritual  sources  and,  consequently,  re- 
gard it  with  a  certain  veneration. 

Women  mediums — who  are,  in  my  opinion, 
not  infrequently  bribed — are  constantly  pro- 
fessing to  receive  messages  confirming  it, 
and  it  is  propagated  not  only  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  England,  but  in  Amer- 
ica and  even  India.  At  present  the  damage 
it  is  doing  is  mainly  confined  to  the  home-life, 
where  it  separates  husband  from  wife  and 
splits  up  the  family  circle,  and,  of  course,  to 
established  religion,  to  which  its  tenets  are 
wholly  opposed.  It  will  soon,  however,  work 
far  wider  havoc;  the  population  question, 
especially  of  the  upper  and  middle  classes, 
will  be  seriously  affected  by  it,  and  it  may 
actually  lead  to  a  sex  war  involving  the  whole- 
sale and  final  destruction  of  the  British,  as 
well  as  other  races.  As  I  have  already  sug- 
gested, the  doctrine  of  free-love,  in  a  specific 
sex  sense,  is  to  no  small  degree  closely  affili- 
ated with  this  doctrine  of  women's  right  to 
predominate,  and  of  man's  iniquities. 

Let  us  now  see  what  the  Bible  Students ' 
Association  has  to  say  with  regard  to  Free 


THE  CHURCHES  93 

Love  in  their  booklet.  Turning  to  page  38, 
we  find:  "The  strongly  marked  tendency  of 
Spiritism  towards  free-love-ism  served  to 
bring  it  into  general  disrepute  among  the 
pure-minded,  who  concluded  that,  if  the  in- 
fluence of  the  dead  was  properly  represented 
in  some  living  advocates  of  Spiritism,  then 
the  social  conditions  beyond  the  vale  of  death 
must  be  much  worse,  much  more  impure,  than 
they  are  in  the  present  life,  instead  of  much 
better,  as  these  demon  spirits  claim.  It 
denies  the  Atonement  and  the  Lordship  of 
Christ,  while  it  claims  that  He  was  a  spirit 
medium  of  low  degree;  and,  furthermore, 
abundant  testimony  could  be  quoted  from 
prominent  Spiritists  proving  that  the  tend- 
encies of  Spiritism  are  extremely  demoraliz- 
ing." 

With  this  idea  of  the  free-love  evil  obvi- 
ously still  in  mind  the  author  of  this  same 
pamphlet  goes  on  to  quote  the  testimony  of 
Mr.  J.  F.  Whitney,  Editor  of  the  Pathfinder 
(N.Y.)  and  once  an  advocate  of  Spiritualism. 
"Now  after  a  long  and  constant  watchful- 
ness, "  he  writes  (p.  29),  "seeing  for  months 
and  years  its  progress  and  its  practical  work- 
ings upon  its  devotees,  its  believers  and  its 


94         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

mediums,  we  are  compelled  to  speak  our 
honest  conviction,  which  is  that  the  manifes- 
tations coming  through  the  acknowledged 
mediums,  who  are  designated  as  rapping,  tip- 
ping, writing  and  entrance  mediums,  have  a 
baneful  influence  upon  believers,  and  create 
discord  and  confusion;  that  the  generality  of 
these  teachings  inculcate  false  ideas,  approve 
of  selfish  individual  acts,  and  endorse  theories 
and  principles  which,  when  carried  out,  de- 
base and  make  man  little  better  than  the 
brute.  Seeing,  as  we  have, ' '  this  writer  adds, 
"the  gradual  progress  it  makes  with  its  be- 
lievers, particularly  its  mediums,  from  lives 
of  morality  to  those  of  sensuality  and  im- 
morality, gradually  and  cautiously  under- 
mining the  foundation  of  good  principles,  we 
look  back  with  amazement  to  the  radical 
change  which  a  few  months  will  bring  about 
in  individuals ;  for  its  tendency  is  to  approve 
and  endorse  each  individual  act  and  charac- 
ter, however  good  or  bad  these  acts  may  be." 
The  bad  influence  of  the  mediums  to  which  Mr. 
Whitney  refers  is,  without  the  shadow  of  a 
doubt,  chiefly  relegated  in  the  channels  to 
which  I  have  referred ;  and  in  the  same  pam- 
phlet we  read:  "So  bold  and  outspokenly 


THE  CHURCHES  95 

immoral  did  some  of  the  prominent  represen- 
tatives of  Spiritism  become,  especially  the  fe- 
male mediums  (and  most  of  its  mediums  are 
female)  that  the  moral  sense  of  civilization 
was  shocked."  Also  an  instance  is  given 
(see  p.  41)  of  a  woman  who  was  induced  by 
Spiritualism  to  enter  into  such  unnatural  ex- 
cesses that  the  very  thought  of  them  event- 
ually drove  her  mad  and  she  had  to  be  con- 
fined in  an  asylum.  "A  gentleman  who  had 
occasionally  attended  on  preaching, ' '  he  says, 
"asked  that  an  interview  be  granted  his  sis- 
ter whom  he  would  bring  from  Cleveland  for 
the  purpose.  She  was,  he  said,  laboring  un- 
der the  delusion  that  she  had  committed  the 
unpardonable  sin  and  he  hoped  we  could  dis- 
abuse her  mind  of  the  thought  which  some- 
times made  her  wild.  We  consented,  and  she 
came.  She  told  us  how  she  had  met  in  Cali- 
fornia a  man  who  had  a  familiar  spirit  and 
occult  powers.  At  first  disbelieving,  she  aft- 
erwards became  his  co-worker  in  *  mysteries ' 
resembling  witchcraft,  and  had  finally  in- 
veigled and  injured  a  'dear  female  friend.' 
Since  then  remorse  had  seized  her,  and  she 
had  been  tortured  and  at  times  frenzied,  and 
hope  had  forever  fled."  The  end,  as  I  have 


96         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

said,  was  lunacy,  and  I  have  no  doubt  what- 
ever there  are  dozens  of  similar  cases  in  our 
asylums  to-day.  I  think  a  thorough  analysis 
of  Chelsea  and  the  West  End  might  prove  the 
truth  of  this  assertion,  but  the  result  of  such 
an  analysis  cannot  be  made  public,  since 
Spiritualism  has  now  become  a  fashion,  and 
whenever  an  attempt  is  made  to  clean  out  a 
quagmire  containing  names  of  any  special 
political  or  social  note,  it  is  instantly  quashed. 

I  have,  however,  no  desire  to  enter  more 
deeply  into  this  question  of  "free  love  with- 
out men"  in  this  volume.  It  is  sufficient  for 
me  to  hint  that  it  exists  in  far  greater  force 
than  the  average  person  thinks,  that  it  finds 
its  recruits  almost  solely  among  the  ranks  of 
the  more  bitter  adherents  of  the  cause  of 
women's  rights,  and  that  Spiritualism,  by 
aiding  and  abetting  it,  is  helping  to  bring 
about  what  will — unless  soon  checked — prove 
to  be  the  biggest  calamity  that  has  ever  be- 
fallen the  world — far  bigger,  even,  than  the 
late  Great  War. 

As  I  think  I  have  now  produced  sufficient 
evidence  to  show  how  strongly  not  only  one 
but  all  orthodox  Christian  denominations 
are  opposed  to  Spiritualism  and  everything 


THE  CHURCHES  97 

that  is  akin  to  it,  I  will  conclude  with  a  few 
very  brief  extracts  from  the  long  corrdspon- 
dence  on  the  subject  in  the  Sunday  Times  of 
1917.  In  the  issue  of  that  paper  for  16th 
September,  Mr.  Alfred  Bruce  Douglas 
writes : 

"As  a  Catholic  I  am  forbidden  to  take  part  in  a 
Spiritual  seance  under  pain  of  mortal  sin,  nor  have  I 
the  least  temptation  to  do  so.  But  before  I  became  a 
Catholic  I  occasionally  dabbled  in  Spiritualism,  and  my 
own  experiences  were  quite  enough  to  convince  me  that 
the  phenomena  are  sometimes  perfectly  genuine  and  per- 
fectly unaccountable  except  on  a  supernatural  basis. 
.  .  .  The  phenomena  of  Spiritualism  are,  the  Church 
teaches,  produced  by  devils  and  evil  spirits.  Their  ob- 
ject is  to  betray  and  deceive  the  human  race.  Con- 
tinued indulgence  in  Spiritualism  leads  to  madness, 
folly  and  despair,  and  loss  of  real  faith." 

Again,  in  a  letter  to  the  same  paper,  pub- 
lished 2nd  September,  1917,  Mr.  Samuel 
George  says: 

"I  began  as  a  would-be  believer  in  Spiritualism.  I 
am  now  an  unbeliever  because  I  know  both  sides.  .  .  . 
The  psychists  complain  about  the  bad  doctrines  of  the 
Churches  and  despise  those  who  adopt  them.  They 
justify  their  own  existence  as  psychists  as  a  result  of 
this  defect,  yet  at  the  same  time  provide  for  mental  con- 
sumption worse  doctrines  than  the  Churches  teach." 


98         MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

And,  lastly,  in  a  letter  published  in  the 
same  paper  on  23rd  September,  1917,  M.  J. 
L.  Bissley,  a  member  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land and  a  Catholic,  says : 

"Spiritualism  is  a  culture  which  it  is  folly  to  deny, 
but  a  greater  one  to  cultivate.  It  has  never  yet  saved 
a  soul;  it  has  ruined  many,  as  it  is  meant  to  do." 

The  words  of  this  gentleman  are  tanta- 
mount to  saying  Spiritualism  is  a  vice.  He 
is  correct.  Spiritualism  is  a  vice,  a  vice  that 
begets  countless  other  vices,  and  as  such  it 
should  be  stamped  out,  and  stamped  out 
quickly. 


CHAPTER  V 


I  HAVE  now  come  to  what  may,  perhaps,  be 
more  correctly  termed  the  phenomenal  side 
of  Spiritualism,  though  it  is,  as  I  have  said 
before,  so  closely  interwoven  with  the  doc- 
trinal branch  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
disassociate  the  one  from  the  other. 

At  most  Spiritualistic  gatherings,  where 
anything  in  the  nature  of  doctrine  is 
preached,  phenomena  of  some  description  or 
other  are  also  called  into  requisition. 

If  one  wishes  for  a  practical  demonstration 
of  the  effect  of  Spiritualism  on  health,  one 
need  not  go  far  afield ;  one  has  only  to  attend 
a  Spiritualistic  meeting,  or  seance,  or  even 
partake  of  afternoon  tea  at  any  Spiritualistic 
club,  and  one  sees  abundant  evidence  of  it. 
The  devotees  of  Spiritualism  are  almost  uni- 
versally people  of  the  same  type — men  and 
women — mostly  the  latter — with  pale,  rest- 

99 


100       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

less  eyes  and  ill-balanced  faces.  Here  and 
there  one  sees  a  massive  and  seemingly  well- 
proportioned  head,  but  there  is  usually  some 
tell-tale  characteristic — either  a  wild,  far- 
away look  in  the  eyes,  or  an  expression  of 
childish  credulity  and  simplicity  spread  over 
the  whole  countenance,  but  particularly  no- 
ticeable in  the  mouth. 

Most  Spiritualists  are  elderly,  and  not  a 
few  in  their  dotage,  for  Spiritualism  is  a 
cult  that,  saving  in  the  case  of  the  abnormal 
and  weak-minded,  rarely  appeals  to  youth. 
I  think,  too,  one  would  not  be  far  wrong  in 
saying  that  no  small  percentage  of  its  de- 
votees are  epileptics.  Here  and  there,  it  is 
true,  at  a  Spiritualistic  gathering,  one  comes 
across  more  or  less  normal  types,  but  these, 
it  will  be  found,  are  generally  either  strangers 
who  have  gone  there  out  of  mere  curiosity; 
or  women  who  are  there  to  make  use  of  other 
women,  either  for  political  or  merely  vicious 
purposes,  sometimes  for  both;  or  harpies,  in 
the  now  fashionable  guise  of  professional 
psychics,  and  these  you  can  generally  tell  by 
the  watchful  expression  in  their  hard,  mean 
eyes,  their  smug  smiles,  and  their  general  air 
of  shrewd  observation  and  furtiveness. 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         101 

The  people  in  this  assembly  whose  whole 
appearance  and  atmosphere  strike  you  as  be- 
ing furthest  removed  from  the  spirit  of  the 
real  Christ  and  His  saints,  are,  in  all  prob- 
ability, those  self-designated,  professional 
psychists,  who  proclaim  that  they  are  conver- 
sant with  denizens  of  the  highest  spiritual 
planes;  and  as  for  the  rest — the  neurotics 
and  anaemics,  who  drink  in  so  eagerly  every 
word  of  the  grandiloquent  clap-trap  that  falls 
from  the  lips  of  the  lecturers  or  speakers,  and 
who  watch  so  greedily  for  any  kind  of  psy- 
chical phenomena  however  trivial  and  ab- 
surd— one  has  only  to  exchange  a  few  words 
with  them  to  perceive  how  thoroughly  un- 
stable and  unbalanced  their  minds  have  be- 
come. They  attribute  everything — even  the 
most  trifling  details  of  their  daily  lives — to 
spirit  influence,  and  see,  in  the  most  natural 
and  commonplace  happenings,  the  work  of 
some  mysterious  visitor  from  the  super-phys- 
ical world. 

I  know  of  one  old  gentleman,  for  example, 
a  confirmed  Spiritualist,  who  never  puts  on 
his  hat,  or  eats  a  crumb  of  bread  without  ask- 
ing permission  of  his  spirit  guide,  and  a  cor- 
respondent wrote  to  me  from  Birmingham 


102       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

to  the  effect  that  he  had  been  suffering  lately 
from  excessive  constipation  through  a  band 
of  spirits  (whom  he  named  individually) 
never  permitting  him  to  take  any  remedy  or 
obtain  relief. 

There  is  also  amongst  my  acquaintances 
a  confirmed  Spiritualist  and  Theosophist  in 
London,  who  can  never  converse  with  you  for 
long  without  saying:  "It  must  be  so,  because 
the  White  Order  have  testified  to  it."  The 
White  Order,  I  learned  on  inquiry,  is  the 
source  of  certain  revelations  made  period- 
ically to  the  old  gentleman  by  a  notorious 
medium,  who  declares  that  he  frequently 
visits  the  angels  in  the  highest  celestial 
spheres  and  is  by  them  initiated  into  the  fu- 
ture happenings  on  this  earth. 

Spiritualism  acts  on  some  people  like  a 
drug — it  intoxicates  them.  The  more  they 
taste  of  it,  the  more  they  want,  until  they 
eventually  arrive  at  such  a  pitch  that  they 
feel  they  cannot  possibly  do  without  it.  They 
are  either  always  being  told  something  by 
spirit  voices,  or  automatic  writing,  or  raps; 
or  else  they  are  continually  fancying  they 
see  angels  (the  angel  craze  has  very  much 
increased  since  the  war,  and  it  no  doubt  re- 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         103 

oeived    an    additional    impetus    from    the 
episode  known  as  "The  Angel  of  Mons"). 

Of  course,  it  is  the  excitement  of  the 
seance  that  produces  this  intoxication.  The 
type  of  neurotic  I  have  specified  has  always, 
perhaps,  craved  for  excitement  and  sensation 
(both  are  recognized  symptoms  of  his 
malady),  and  he  finds  these  cravings  best  pro- 
vided for  in  the  menu  of  the  Spiritualists. 
He  goes  to  a  seance  where  he  sits  in  semi- 
darkness,  momentarily  expecting  something 
to  happen,  and  this  state  of  chronic  expect- 
ancy is  like  nectar  to  him.  When  he  gets 
home  he  tries  a  little  table-turning  or  crystal- 
gazing  in  his  bedroom,  and  then,  after  a  fitful 
night's  sleep,  in  which  his  dreams  are  well 
garnished  with  visions  of  angels,  spirits  of 
the  dead,  creaking  tables  and  flying  tam- 
bourines, he  awakens,  all  hurry  for  the  day 
to  pass  quickly  and  for  it  to  be  time  again  for 
him  to  attend  another  seance.  In  the  end  he 
becomes  a  constant  attendant  at  such  proceed- 
ings and  clings  to  them  for  just  as  long  as  his 
fast-decaying  mentality  will  permit  him. 
The  kind  of  excitement  one  gets  at  seance  is, 
moreover,  not  only  bad  for  the  mind,  but  it 
affects  other  organs  as  well;  from  the  con- 


MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

stant  straining  of  the  ears  to  catch  the  sound 
of  creakings,  taps  and  spirit  voices,  those  or- 
gans gradually  become  impaired,  whilst  the 
sight  suffers  equally  through  the  strain  of  try- 
ing to  make  out  spirit  forms  and  ordinary  ma- 
terial objects  in  the  whole  or  semi-darkness. 

Excitement,  too,  of  any  sort,  is  bad  for  the 
heart,  and  the  constant  thrills  one  gets  upon 
hearing  even  the  most  usual  noises — for 
darkness  apparently  intensifies  sound — can 
only  have  the  most  weakening  and  injurious 
effect — an  effect  that  might  very  well  be  fatal 
in  the  case  of  any  one  suffering  from  actual 
heart  disease.  Besides,  unnatural  excite- 
ment of  this  description  often  encourages,  if 
it  does  not  actually  produce,  either  locomotor 
ataxia  or  cerebral  paralysis. 

Also,  I  have  heard  that  the  excitement  oc- 
casioned by  seeing  a  table  suddenly  rise  and 
tilt  has  brought  on  fits — apoplectic  as  well  as 
epileptic. 

But  one  of  the  commonest  results  of  con- 
tinually going  to  seances,  and  constantly  con- 
sulting so-called  professional  psychists — no 
matter  what  their  modus  operandi,  or 
whether  their  alleged  spirit  communications 
be  celestial  or  otherwise — is  insanity.  I 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         105 

myself  have  come  across  many  people  who 
have  succumbed  to  the  craze  for  attending 
seances,  and  have  eventually  gone  mad. 

One  case,  for  instance,  was  recorded  in  the 
daily  papers  not  so  very  long  ago,  and  will, 
I  dare  say,  be  recalled  by  those  who  happen 
to  have  read  it. 

A  young  lady,  well  known  in  society,  was 
induced  to  become  a  Spiritualist  through  the 
prospects  held  out  to  her  of  being  able  to 
penetrate  into  the  deepest  mysteries — or,  in 
Spiritualistic  parlance,  get  initiated  into  the 
innermost  secrets  concerning  another  life. 
She  consulted  mediums  and  attended  seances, 
and,  in  the  end,  fancied  she  heard  spirit 
voices  continually  telling  her  to  join  her 
friends  and  affinity  on  the  other  side.  At  last, 
unable  to  bear  the  strain  of  hearing  these  in- 
cessant voices  any  longer,  she  went  to  stay  in 
the  country,  and,  in  the  gray  hours  of  the 
morning,  the  time  when  she  had  been  led  to  be- 
lieve her  spirit  friends  were  appealing  most 
strongly  for  her  advent  amongst  them,  she 
committed  suicide. 

Another  case  of  a  victim  who  was  well 
known  to  me — at  least  by  repute — is  that  of 
a  man,  the  son  of  a  Northamptonshire  vicar, 


106       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

who  was  intimately  acquainted  with  certain 
of  my  oldest  friends.  Falling  under  the 
spell  of  Spiritualism  he,  too,  soon  became 
convinced  that  spirit  voices,  which  he  had 
first  heard  at  seances,  followed  him  every- 
where, and  kept  on  appealing  to  him  to  take 
the  plunge  and  see  what  it  was  like  behind  the 
veil.  Consequently,  one  evening,  when  he 
was  having  supper  with  my  friends,  he  sud- 
denly sprang  up,  and,  declaring  that  he  could 
hear  the  voices  whispering  in  his  ears  and 
telling  him  he  was  wanted — wanted  badly — 
he  hastened  out  of  the  room,  into  the  dark- 
ness of  the  night.  The  following  morning  he 
was  found  on  the  railway  line — run  over,  and 
there  is  little  doubt  that,  obeying  the  injunc- 
tions of  the  real  or  imaginary  spirit  voices, 
he  had  placed  himself  there  for  that  purpose. 
Anyhow,  a  verdict  of  suicide  whilst  in  a  state 
of  unsound  mind  was  returned. 

I  can  also  quote,  from  personal  knowledge, 
a  third  case,  i.e.,  that  of  a  retired  army  officer 
who,  from  continually  attending  table-tilting 
seances  presided  over  by  professional  medi- 
ums, took  to  hearing  rappings  in  his  own 
house.  They  came  to  him  at  all  hours,  but 
most  frequently  in  the  night,  until  he  was  sel- 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         107 

dom  free  from  them,  and,  consequently,  had 
a  very  severe  nervous  breakdown.  However, 
acting  on  his  doctor's  advice,  he  gave  up 
Spiritualism,  and  was  eventually  restored  to 
health. 

From  these  examples  I  conclude  that  no 
person  who  has  made  a  habit  of  continually 
attending  seances  for  any  length  of  time  can 
hope  to  escape  from  all  the  ill  effects  to 
which  they  have  thereby  subjected  their  mind 
and  body,  and  if  they  do  not  in  the  end  be- 
come absolutely  demented,  they  certainly  de- 
generate and  become  very  far  from  either 
sound  or  normal.  Hitherto,  whenever  this 
question  of  Spiritualism  causing  insanity  has 
been  dealt  with,  it  has  at  once  been  suggested 
that,  in  all  probability,  those  Spiritualists 
who  have  gone  mad  would  have  done  so  in 
any  case — that  is  to  say,  they  would  have 
gone  mad,  had  they  never  heard  of  a  seance 
or  seen  a  medium.  Very  possibly,  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  is  no  doubt  whatever 
that  Spiritualism  has  precipitated  their  in- 
sanity; and  if  the  spirits  that  demonstrate 
themselves  at  seances  and  private  sittings 
come  from  the  high  and  celestial  planes  they 
profess  to  come  from,  how  is  it  that  they 


108       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

have  such  an  injurious  effect  on  the  mind? 
If  they  really  are  angels,  or  the  spirits  of 
good  people,  would  they  not  invariably  exer- 
cise a  soothing  and  healing  effect  on  the 
brain,  instead  of  irritating  and  inflaming  it? 

No,  Spiritualists  cannot  get  away  from  the 
fact  that,  despite  all  their  boasted  intimacy 
— which  generally  amounts  to  revolting 
familiarity — with  angels  and  spirits  of  the 
dead — entities  which,  when  of  flesh  and  blood, 
possessed  quite  out  of  the  ordinary  intelli- 
gence and  moral  qualities,  and  were  only  too 
anxious  to  do  anything  that  would  benefit 
mankind — no  information  that  has  in  the 
slightest  degree  aided  medical  research  has 
been  obtained. 

Furthermore,  Spiritualism  can  point  to  no 
really  authenticated  case  of  malignant  disease 
being  cured  through  mediumship,  or  to  any 
one  who  could  be  pronounced  by  a  quite  im- 
partial medical  man  to  be  the  better  in  health 
for  his  constant  attendance  at  seances,  and 
his  habit  of  imbibing  Spiritualistic  literature. 
It  seems  to  me  to  make  little  material  differ- 
ence to  my  argument  that  Spiritualism  in- 
duces insanity,  whether  the  people  that  have 
become  insane  through  attending  seances 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         109 

were  naturally  weak-minded  or  not.  In 
either  case  the  spirit  influence  at  seances  is 
thus  proved  to  be  the  reverse  of  beneficial, 
and  any  attempt  to  camouflage  these  spirits 
under  the  guise  of  angels  or  equally  well-dis- 
posed super-physical  entities  is  useless.  It 
will  be  argued,  of  course,  that  the  enrollment 
of  such  men  as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  Sir 
Arthur  Conan  Doyle  in  the  ranks  of  Spirit- 
ualists must,  at  any  rate,  modify  my  destruc- 
tive criticism.  I  do  not  think  so.  On  the 
contrary,  I  rather  think  it  strengthens  it. 

Both  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  Sir  A.  C.  Doyle 
are  geniuses  in  their  legitimate  callings,  and 
with  regard  to  genius  I  cannot  do  better  than 
suggest  that  the'  reader  should  refer  to  an 
article  by  Mr.  James  Sully,  author  of  "The 
Human  Mind"  and  "Illusions,"  that  ap- 
peared in  The  Nineteenth  Century,  June, 
1885.  The  following  extracts  from  it  may, 
however,  serve  to  illustrate  my  purpose : 

(1)  "Genius  must  be  looked  upon  as  the  most  signal 
and  impressive  manifestation  of  that  tendency  of  Na- 
ture to  variation  and  individuation  in  her  organic  forma- 
tions which  modern  science  is  compelled  to  retain  among 
its  unexplained  facts." 

(2)  "Our  conclusion  is  that  the  possession  of  genius 


110       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

carries  with  it  special  liabilities  to  the  action  of  the 
disintegrating  forces  which  environ  us  all.  It  involves 
a  state  of  delicate  equipoise,  of  unstable  equilibrium, 
in  the  psycho-physical  organization.  Paradoxical  as  it 
may  seem,  one  may  venture  to  affirm  that  great  original 
power  of  mind  is  incompatible  with  nice  adjustment 
to  surroundings,  and  so  with  perfect  well-being." 

From  these  two  quotations  I  think  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  in  the  author 's  opinion 
geniuses  are  always  more  or  less  abnormals, 
and,  being  such,  have  a  natural  fascination 
for  abnormal  subjects.  Hence,  it  is  not  at 
all  strange  to  find  both  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and 
Sir  A.  C.  Doyle  have  become  infatuated  with 
Spiritualism. 

But  to  revert  to  the  injurious  effect  Spirit- 
ualism has  on  health.  I  think  I  cannot  do 
better  in  support  of  this  theory  than  to  quote 
the  views  and  opinions  of  certain  people — 
chiefly  medicals — who  are  specially  qualified 
to  speak  on  the  subject. 

I  will,  then,  refer  first  of  all  to  John  M. 
Maccormac,  M.D.,  L.K.C.P.,  and  S.Ed.,  Phy- 
sician to  the  Victoria  Hospital  for  diseases 
of  the  nervous  system,  Belfast,  who,  in  a 
work  entitled  "Abnormal  Ideas  and  Nervous 
Super-excitability"  (published  by  William 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH        111 

Mullan  &  Sons,  Belfast,  1899)  says  on  page 
19 :  "  The  next  point  for  our  consideration  is 
that  which  relates  to  the  troubles  of  the  ner- 
vous system  which  arise  from  or  are  asso- 
ciated with  the  teaching  of  mysticism."  On 
page  20  he  gives  the  following  definition  of 
mysticism:  "The  common  character  of  the 
chief  aspects  of  mysticism  is  an  immense 
longing  for  happiness,  coupled  with  a  pro- 
found contempt  for  sensuous  things.  Ke- 
garding  the  joys  of  this  world  as  ever-chang- 
ing and  inseparable  from  pain,  the  mystic 
seeks  to  realize  at  once  the  joys  of  an  eternal 
bliss,"  and  this  definition  will  be  seen  to  ap- 
ply very  accurately  to  a  large  class  of  Spirit- 
ualists at  all  events,  who,  scorning  the  attrac- 
tions offered  by  the  inhabitants  and  scenery 
of  this  world,  seek  to  obtain  immediate  en- 
trance to,  or  intercourse  with,  the  so-called 
highest  spiritual  planes  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  a  medium  or  personal  experi- 
ments with  crystals,  etc. 

Dr.  Maccormac  goes  on  to  define  the  two 
classes  into  which  he  divides  mystics,  the 
one — that  of  the  people  who  "despise  the 
body  with  all  its  wondrous  organisms  and 
capabilities,  that  they  may  seek  to  attain  to 


MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

a  mysterious  union  with  or  absorption  into 
some  divine  essence,"  and  the  other,  those 
who  "  yield  themselves  to  a  certain  elevation 
of  the  spirit,  supposed  to  be  the  outcome  of 
some  direct  spiritual  manifestation."  In 
both  cases,  as  he  points  out,  the  results  of 
such  beliefs  and  practices  are  equally  in- 
jurious to  the  nervous  system. 

Dr.  Maccormac's  booklet  is  quite  short, 
only  thirty-one  pages,  but  it  would  be  well 
worth  the  while  of  any  one  who  is  contemplat- 
ing taking  up  spiritualism  to  read  it,  before 
embarking  on  such  an  extremely  perilous  un- 
dertaking. 

In  another  work,  entitled  "  Types  of  In- 
sanity: an  Illustrated  Guide  in  the  Physical 
Diagnosis  of  Mental  Disease,"  by  Allan  Mc- 
Lane  Hamilton,  M.D.,  one  of  the  consulting 
physicians  to  the  Insane  Asylums  of  New 
York  City,  and  the  Hudson  River  State  Hos- 
pital for  the  Insane,  etc.  (published  by  Wil- 
liam Wood  &  Co.,  New  York,  1883),  the  au- 
thor describes  many  interesting  cases  of  in- 
sane people  who  labor  under  the  delusion 
they  hear  and  see  things,  or  in  other  words 
are  perpetually  clairaudient  and  clairvoyant. 

For  example,  opposite  Plate  V.  and  under 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         113 

the  heading  of  "Subacute  Mania,"  we  have 
"E.  E.,  aged  twenty-eight,  duration  of  in- 
sanity six  years,  auditory  hallucinations. 
She  has  communications  with  divine  person- 
ages and  delusions  of  grandeur."  ('Com- 
pare this  with  the  claims  made  by  certain 
Spiritualists  to  hear  angels '  voices  and  to  be 
on  talking  terms  with  the  spirits  of  such 
eminents  as  Milton,  Shakespeare,  Charles 
Dickens,  etc.) 

Again,  opposite  Plate  III.  and  under  head- 
ing of  "Melancholia  Attonita,"  we  have  "C. 
C.,  aged  thirty-seven,  auditory  hallucinations. 
She  hears  voices  commanding  her  not  to  eat." 
(Compare  with  certain  of  the  alleged  spirit 
commands  of  a  similar  nature,  to  which  I 
have  already  referred.)  Again,  opposite 
Plate  VII.  and  under  heading  of  "Dementia," 
we  read  "A.  W.,  aged  forty-four.  She  has 
had  visual  hallucinations,  and  has  heard 
voices  which  told  her  to  destroy  herself." 
(Compare  with  some  of  the  cases  of  suicide 
I  have  quoted  as  coming  within  my  own  cog- 
nizance.). The  author  does  not  say  any  of 
the  trio  were  Spiritualists  or  lost  their  rea- 
son through  attending  seances,  but  it  is  a 
significant  fact  that  the  hallucinations  of 


MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

which  they  were  the  victims  tally  exactly  with 
certain  of  the  phenomena  Spiritualists  claim 
as  hailing  from  the  spirit  world. 

That  my  remarks  are  based  on  a  very 
solid  foundation  will,  I  think,  appear  per- 
fectly evident  when  I  quote  the 'views  of 
Thomas  Massie,  M.B.,  as  expressed  in  a  let- 
ter published  by  the  Sunday  Times,  9th  Sep- 
tember, 1917.  After  stating  that  for  twenty 
years  he  has  been  engaged  in  the  task  of  * '  in- 
vestigating the  mental  condition  of  some  two 
thousand  five  hundred  alleged  lunatics,"  he 
goes  on  to  say  that  from  such  people  he  has 
heard  many  statements  assuring  him  of  the 
presence  of  spirit  forms,  such  as  were  de- 
scribed by  a  lady,  styling  herself  "an  investi- 
gator of  Spiritualism,"  and  claiming  to  pos- 
sess the  powers  both  of  clairvoyance  and 
clairaudience,  in  the  Sunday  Times  for  2nd 
September,  1917.  "I  have  never  had,"  he 
continues,  "any  hesitation  in  certifying  such 
persons  as  fit  for  asylum  treatment.  Neither 
the  Superintendent  of  the  Asylums  nor  the 
Commissioners  on  Lunacy  have  ever  ques- 
tioned my  certificates,  and  in  my  experience 
the  justices  have  never  had  any  hesitation  in 
signing  reception  orders  for  such  persons." 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         115 

Dr.  Massie  received  substantial  corrobora- 
tion  of  what  he  wrote  in  a  letter  published 
in  the  Sunday  Times  on  30th  September, 
1917,  in  which  the  correspondent,  Mr.  G. 
Stuart  Ogilvie,  said:  "Mr.  Massie  deals 
with  the  evidence  very  effectively,  and  as  a 
county  magistrate  with  over  a  quarter  of  a 
century's  experience  in  certifying  patients 
for  our  public  lunatic  asylums,  I  can  endorse 
the  truth  of  every  word  this  professional 
gentleman  writes."  He  goes  on  to  remark 
further  on  in  the  same  letter,  "The  basic 
facts  remain  that  Spiritualism  is  as  old  as 
humanity,  and  that  credulity  is  the  converse 
of  faith.  The  effect  upon  the  weak-minded 
and  the  neuropathetic — especially  in  times  of 
great  mental  and  physical  strain — has  in- 
variably been  the  same  in  all  periods.  The 
cult  revives,  impostors  flourish,  insanity  in- 
creases, and  the  sum-total  of  the  national 
will-power  is,  pro  tanto,  decreased." 

Still  another  medical  opinion  taken  from 
the  same  source.  In  a  letter  published  in  the 
Sunday  Times  OR  4th  November,  1917,  L.  A. 
Weatherby,  M.D.,  wrote:  "Can  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  or  any  one  who  declares  that  conversa- 
tions have  taken  place  between  the  dead  and 


116       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

themselves  inform  me  of  a  single  instance  in 
which  any  real  and  important  communica- 
tions have  been  made?  .  .  .  Has,  in  fact,  any 
single  instance  of  some  important  informa- 
tion ever  been  made  from  that  other  world?" 
And  continuing,  he  observes,  "Have  these  be- 
lievers in  Spiritualistic  manifestations  ever 
visited  institutions  for  the  insane,  and 
watched  those  afflicted  with  hallucinations  of 
hearing  and  sight,  heard  their  remarkable 
conversation  with  these  unseen  speakers,  and 
n'oticed  the  effect  some  of  these  insane  sense 
deceptions  have  given  rise  to  ? " 

I  will  now  quote  from  a  work  entitled 
"On  Unsoundness  of  Mind  in  its  Legal  and 
Medical  Considerations,"  written  by  J.  W. 
Hume  Williams,  of  the  Middle  Temple,  Bar- 
rister-at-Law  (published  in  1890  by  William 
Clowes  &  Sons,  Fleet  Street,  London).  On 
page  56,  for  example,  the  author  observes — 
"A  phase  of  mental  disturbance,  as  evinced 
in  public  credulity,  has  within  the  last  thirty 
years  become  more  particularly  developed. 
'Spiritualism'  has  had  crowds  of  converts; 
professors  of  its  art  and  mystery  thriving  on 
the  ignorant  susceptibilities  of  the  multitude, 
to  the  great  disquiet  of  weak-minded  be- 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         117 

lievers  in  the  supernatural.  The  action  and 
reaction  of  psychic  force  evoking  nervous 
sympathies  in  excitable  temperaments,  has, 
in  many,  produced  hysterical  cataleptic  re- 
sults, appreciable  by  the  physician,  but  to  the 
uninformed  full  of  mystery." 

The  hysterical  condition  thus  brought 
about  is  then,  according  to  Mr.  Hume,  the  true 
explanation  of  the  majority,  at  least,  of  so- 
called  Spiritualistic  trances.  Far  from  be- 
ing under  the  control  of  any  exterior  spirit 
force  the  trance  medium  is  merely  the  victim 
of  abnormal  condition  of  the  mind,  a  condi- 
tion into  which  she  has  unconsciously  worked 
herself. 

This  type  of  mediumship  is,  in  fact,  wholly 
self-induced,  wholly  dependent  on  a  supreme 
straining  and  irritation  of  the  entire  nervous 
system,  which  results  in  a  temporary  com- 
plete suspension  of  the  locomotor  faculties. 
I  refer,  of  course,  only  to  the  mediumship  in 
connection  with  which  there  is  no  deliberate 
fraud  on  the  part  of  the  medium,  who,  when 
honest,  no  doubt  does  think  she  is  handing 
over  her  body  to  the  control  of  some  attend- 
ing spirit.  Mr.  Hume  obviously  agrees  with 
me  that  the  generality  of  people  attracted  by 


118       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

Spiritualism  are  either  abnormal  or  weak- 
minded,  or  that  they  eventually  become  so, 
once  having  adopted  that  cult. 

A  point  that  is  made  much  of  by  Spirit- 
ualists in  dealing  with  this  question  of  trance 
mediumship  is  that  of  the  alleged  talking  in 
strange  voices  and  unknown  tongues.  ''It's 
all  very  well,"  they  exclaim,  "for  Mr.  Hume 
to  try  to  explain  trances  by  declaring  them  to 
be  the  result  of  hysterical  catalepsy ;  but  how 
could  he  or  any  one  else  possibly  account  for 
a  trance  in  which  the  subject  suddenly  begins 
to  talk  in  a  very  different  voice  from  his 
natural  voice,  and  often  in  a  language  that 
we  are  certain  is  unknown  to  him  when  he 
is  not  under  control?  How  can  you  explain 
this,  saving  by  some  outside  spirit  influence?" 
Well,  I  believe  there  is  the  possibility  of  ob- 
session, i.e.,  of  some  contaminating  spirit  in- 
fluence getting  temporary  control  over  peo- 
ple and  utilizing  them  for  evil  purposes.  I 
think  that  such  a  phenomenon  might  happen, 
but  that  it  is  very  exceptional,  simply  because 
I  do  not  believe  present-day  mediums  are  in 
possession  of  such  secrets  as  were,  in  all  prob- 
ability, known  to  the  necromancers  and 
witches  of  olden  times.  I  believe  most  of 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         119 

the  so-called  spirit  trances  of  to-day  are 
either  wholly  fakes,  or  else  can  be  explained 
by  some  such  natural  causes  as  Mr.  Hume 
suggests.  It  must  be  remembered  that  most 
of  the  people  who  visit  mediums  are  not  alto- 
gether normal  or  well-balanced  (because,  as 
I  have  already  said,  mysticism  has  peculiar 
attractions  for  such  people),  and  that  they 
go  to  seances  with  minds  so  prejudiced  in 
favor  of  believing,  and  anxious  to  believe, 
that  it  has  only  to  be  suggested  to  them  that 
the  voices  they  hear  are  those  of  their  dead 
friends,  when  they  will  at  once  fall  in  with 
the  idea  and  actually  identify  the  voices. 
Some  one  suggests,  too,  that  the  medium  is 
speaking  in  some  foreign  tongue — a  tongue 
that  is  declared  to  be  quite  unknown  to  the 
medium  when  the  latter  is  not  under  control 
(though  no  one  is  in  a  position  to  vouch  for 
the  truth  of  this  but  the  medium  herself),  and 
those  present  will  at  once  concur  and  declare 
the  language  to  be  Arabic,  Chinese,  or  what 
not,  there  being  no  one  at  hand  sufficiently 
expert  (or  bold  enough)  to  refute  their  state- 
ment. It  also  happens  sometimes,  I  believe, 
that  the  medium,  having  worked  herself  into 
a  cataleptic  condition,  is  quite  silent,  but  is 


120       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

by  those  present  declared  still  to  be  speaking. 
Indeed,  there  is  no  limit  to  the  part  sugges- 
tion and  imagination  play  on  such  occasions, 
as  any  one  who  has  been  present  at  a  table- 
turning  seance  and  heard  the  very  slight 
creaks  at  once  exaggerated  into  ''loud  raps" 
will  know. 

In  a  book  I  have  before  me,  and  which  is 
entitled  "Text  Book  on  Mental  Diseases,"1 
the  author,  Theodore  H.  Kellog,  A.M.,  M.D., 
late  medical  superintendent  of  Willard  State 
Hospital  and  former  physican-in-chief  of 
New  York  City  Asylum  for  the  Insane,  writes 
at  great  length  on  hallucinations,  both  audi- 
tory and  visual,  and  although  he  does  not 
actually  allude  to  them  in  connection  with 
Spiritualism,  I  cannot  help  remarking  upon 
the  very  great  similarity  between  the  phenom- 
ena he  attributes  to  patients,  suffering  from 
mental  aberration,  and  the  phenomena 
claimed  by  Spiritualists. 

Let  me  quote  a  few  extracts  from  his  work 
by  way  of  illustration.  On  page  154  we  find 
these  lines: 

"Auditory  hallucinations  may  simulate  the  voices  of 
i  Published  in  London,  1897,  by  J.  and  A.  Churchill. 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH 

friends  of  strangers,  and  they  may  speak  in  foreign 
tongues,  and  may  also  issue  from  animate  and  inanimate 
things,  and  represent  every  conceivable  sound  known  to 
the  patient,  or  even  new  strange  combinations  of 
sounds" ; 

and  such  observations  will  appear  all  the 
more  significant,  if  one  recalls  the  many  oc- 
casions upon  which  Spiritualists  at  a  seance 
declare  they  hear  voices,  and  the  voices  are 
heard  by  no  one  else.  In  the  case  of  spon- 
taneous spirit  appearances  in  haunted  houses, 
I  believe  the  phenomena,  whether  auditory  or 
visual,  are  frequently  witnessed  by  a  number 
of  people  assembled  together  (though,  in 
some  cases,  it  is  true,  they  are  witnessed  only 
by  individuals  separately) ;  whereas  the  phe- 
nomena alleged  to  be  seen  or  heard  at  seances 
are  usually  experienced  only  by  the  medium, 
or,  at  the  most,  by  one  or  two  of  the  sitters, 
and  those  who  see  the  same  phenomenon  sel- 
dom give  the  same  description  of  it.  Many 
times  I  have  heard,  at  a  seance,  one  person 
declare  that  he  heard  rappings,  or  spirit 
voices,  or  that  he  saw  blue  lights,  when  no 
one  else  could  hear  or  see  anything;  and,  on 
remonstrating,  I  have  been  told  that  I  was 
not  psychic.  This  has  amused  me  vastly, 


MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

since  I  have  had  more  corroborated  experi- 
ences with  spontaneous  phenomena  in  houses 
well  known  to  be  haunted  than  most  people. 

But  to  continue.  Let  us  see  what  Dr.  Kel- 
log  has  to  say  with  regard  to  suggestion, 
which,  as  I  have  stated,  figures  so  largely  at 
all  seances. 

"Sensitive  hallucinatory  patients,"  he  observes,  "are 
influenced  by  their  reading  and  by  conversation,  and  it 
is  possible  in  this  way  to  have  hallucinations  by  direct 
suggestion." 

Now  it  is  direct  suggestion,  I  believe — 
when  there  is  no  actual  fraud — that  certain 
people  are  persuaded  at  seances  that  they 
see  and  hear  phenomena.  The  medium  pro- 
fesses to  see  some  luminous  figure  (or  figures, 
for  she  usually  sees  dozens  of  them)  hover- 
ing behind  some  one 's  chair,  and  immediately 
one  or  other  of  the  sitters  cries  out  that  they 
see  a  flame,  or  a  hand,  or  an  ethereal  some- 
thing. At  the  same  time  they  exhibit  none 
of  the  terror  one  would  naturally  expect 
them  to  experience,  were  they  really  con- 
fronted by  a  genuine  phantasm. 

Let  us  now  revert  to  what  Dr.  Kellog  has 
to  say  further  on  the  subject  of  visual  hal- 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         123 

lucinations,  and  apply  his  remarks  to  such 
phenomena  as  those  Spiritualists  who  call 
themselves  clairvoyants  claim  to  experience 
at  Spiritualistic  meetings  in  alleged  trances 
and  in  crystals. 

"Visual  hallucinations,"  he  states,  "may  have  definite 
or  indefinite  proportions;  they  may  seem  as  on  a  flat 
surface  or  solid  and  rounded;  they  may  have  changing 
or  fixed  outlines,  and  advance  or  recede,  or  move  across 
the  field  of  vision ;  they  may  be  colorless  or  have  various 
prismatic  tints;  they  may  be  larger  or  smaller  than  life; 
they  may  be  single  or  multiple;  and  they  may  even  be 
of  panoramic  character." 

In  short,  they  may  cover  an  immense  range, 
and  embrace  every  kind  of  object  or  scene 
that  Spiritualists  declare  are  purely  spiritual. 
Those  suffering  from  medically  attested  hal- 
lucinations are  just  as  emphatically  sure  that 
they  actually  see  the  celestial  visions  they 
think  they  see,  as  are  Spiritualists,  the  only 
difference  being  that  the  latter  superciliously 
claim  their  visions  to  be  the  result  of  the  so- 
called  psychic  faculty,  whereas  the  latter — 
the  certified  lunatics — do  not  claim  anything 
of  the  kind,  but  regard  them  naturally,  with- 
out any  conceit  or  affection  whatsoever.  Dr. 
Kellog's  remarks  are  singularly  applicable 


MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

to  the  spirit  faces,  stated  to  be  seen  at  seances 
where  materialization  is  alleged  to  take  place, 
though  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  these 
faces  have  not  infrequently  been  proved  to 
be  a  fake  on  the  part  of  the  medium  or  an 
accomplice. 

1  'The  mask-like  hallucination,"  Dr.  Kellog 
says  (p.  157),  "is  very  real  and  leads  pa- 
tients to  believe  that  their  acquaintances 
change  their  features  frequently."  How 
often  have  trance  mediums  been  declared  to 
have  had  their  countenances  suddenly  meta- 
morphosed into  the  faces  of  those  whose  mes- 
sages they  profess  to  deliver. 

Let  us  go  on  to  see  what  further  Dr.  Kel- 
log has  to  say  with  regard  to  the  same  sub- 
ject. On  page  157  we  read,  "Visual  halluci- 
nations are  common  in  the  acute  stages  of 
mental  disorder,  and  in  general  paresis,  and 
they  are  more  frequent  during  the  vital  re- 
duction of  the  night  season  than  in  the  day- 
time. ' ' 

It  will  be  noticed  that  most  seances  are  held 
in  the  dark,  and  that  darkness  is  declared  by 
Spiritualists — particularly  mediums — to  be 
essential  for  spirit  materialization  (this,  by 
the  way,  is  not  at  all  the  case  with  spontane- 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         125 

ous  ghostly  phenomena  in  haunted  houses, 
which  can  manifest  themselves  at  all  times). 
Darkness,  according  to  Dr.  Kellog  and  other 
medical  experts,  also  specially  favors  visual 
hallucination,  so  that  I  think  we  can  safely  as- 
sume that  many  of  the  so-called  spirit  phenom- 
ena declared  to  be  seen  at  seances  are,  in 
reality,  nothing  more  nor  less  than  visual  hal- 
lucinations experienced  by  people  with  some 
rapidly  developing  mental  or  physical  de- 
fect. For  instance,  Dr.  Kellog  informs  us^ 
(p.  157)  that  visual  hallucinations  are  not 
uncommon  in  eye  diseases.  Might  it  not, 
therefore,  be  perfectly  feasible  that  a  certain 
percentage  of  those  people  who  see  these  so- 
called  spirit  manifestations,  to  order,  have 
some  peculiar  optical  deficiency  or  disease, 
such  as  is  frequently  to  be  met  with  in  peo- 
ple who  are  quite  out  of  the  normal — and 
it  is  these  abnormal  persons,  I  repeat,  whom 
Spiritualism  particularly  attracts  and  caters 
for.  Another  form  of  visual  hallucination, 
this  brain  specialist  tells  us  (p.  157),  is  "the 
aura  of  the  epileptic."  Epileptics  see  auras, 
so  do  other  people  who  claim  to  be  clairvoy- 
ants— no  one  else  does.  Now  as  I  have  pre- 
viously remarked — a  statement  that  I  fancy 


126       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

there  would  be  little  difficulty  in  corroborat- 
ing— people  attending  seances  have  not  in- 
frequently been  seized  with  epileptic  fits,  so 
that  the  excitement  of  anticipating  phenom- 
ena either  generated  epilepsy,  or  else  the 
victims  had  been  subject  to  the  seizures  pre- 
viously; in  either  case,  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion that  the  effect  of  attendance  at  such  ex- 
hibitions was  very  injurious,  which  would 
hardly  be  the  case  if  the  spirits  alleged  to  be 
present  were  good  ones. 

One  more  reference  to  Dr.  Kellog,  and  then 
I  will  pass  on  to  some  other  authority.  On 
page  173  (I  quote  from  the  same  work),  he 
says,  "Hysterical  and  hypochondriacal  pa- 
tients indulge  in  fantastic  reveries,  and 
paranoiacs  have  a  sort  of  a  dream-life  for 
months  together,  and  the  outcome  in  chronic 
mania  is  a  steady  play  of  fantasy,  and  the 
senile  dement  reverts  to  childish  action  of 
fantasy."  Let  us  compare  this  with  the 
statements  of  psychics,  who  tell  us  that  they 
have  often  visited  the  highest  spiritual  planes 
and  wandered  through  lovely,  sunny  mea- 
dows in  company  with  angels,  and  that  they 
have  been  shown  panoramic  views  of  such 
dazzling  beauty  and  radiance  as  no  mortal 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         127 

eyes  ever  looked  upon  before.  Such  vaunt- 
ings  are  very  common,  and  are  usually  found 
to  emanate  from  the  older  ranks  of  Spiritual- 
ists— people  almost,  if  not  quite,  in  their  dot- 
age. We  may,  therefore,  put  two  and  two 
together. 

Another  work  I  have  at  hand  is  one  by 
Bernard  Hart,  M.D.  (London),  entitled 
"The  Psychology  of  Insanity,"  and  pub- 
lished by  the  Cambridge  University  Press, 
1912. 

In  this  work  Dr.  Hart  makes  some  very 
interesting  remarks  on  the  subject  of  auto- 
matic writing,  to  which  many  Spiritualists 
—especially  those  who  are  also  members  of 
the  Psychical  Research  Society — attach  so 
much  importance. 

Now  I  am  quite  ready  to  believe  that  cer- 
tain of  the  communications  one  does  receive 
in  writing  of  this  description  are  due  to  spirit 
agency,  but  I  think  when  that  happens  the 
writing  comes  to  us  more  or  less  spontane- 
ously; I  do  not  consider  it  at  all  probable 
that  it  can  be  forced,  or  made  to  respond  to 
the  invitation  of  people  who  are  out  purely 
for  sordid  motives,  as  is  the  case  with  pro- 
fessional mediums.  I  think  that  when  one 


128       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

sits  constantly  and  forces  the  mind  into  that 
state  of  blank  Spiritualists  deem  necessary 
in  order  to  obtain  results,  one  renders  oneself 
liable  to  at  least  two  very  serious  dangers. 
First  of  all,  there  is  the  off-chance  of  some 
genuine  inhabitant  of  a  very  undesirable 
spirit  world  coming  along  and  obtaining  an 
influence  over  us,  that  would  certainly  not  be 
to  our  moral  advantage ;  and,  secondly,  there 
is  the  extreme  probability  of  our  minds 
gradually  becoming  weaker,  and  our  whole 
health  suffering  in  consequence. 

To  such  of  us  who  are  in  full  possession 
of  our  mental  and  bodily  vigor  such  constant 
practices  would  be  distinctly  injurious,  but 
to  those  of  us  who  are  naturally  of  rather 
weak  intellect,  hysterical,  or  in  any  way  ab- 
normal, the  gravest  results  might  readily  en- 
sue. Let  us  now  see  what  Dr.  Hart  has  to 
say  on  this  subject. 

In  "The  Psychology  of 'insanity"  (p.  43), 
we  find,  "Let  us  take  for  example  the  phe- 
nomenon of  automatic  writing.  This  curious 
condition,  although  occasionally  exhibited  by 
comparatively  normal  people,  attains  its  most 
perfect  development  in  the  form  of  mental 
disorder  known  as  hysteria. ' '  Dr.  Hart  goes 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         129 

on  to  say  that  "if  we  engage  an  hysterical 
patient  in  conversation,  and  while  his  mind 
is  apparently  wholly  occupied  talking  to  us, 
slip  a  pencil  into  his  hand,  he  will,  if  some 
third  person  begins  to  whisper  questions  in  his 
ear,  write  answers  to  them,  being  at  the  same 
time  totally  ignorant  of  what  his  hand  is  do- 
ing, and  of  the  events  he  is  describing."  Oc- 
casionally, Dr.  Hart  says,  these  events  nar- 
rate past  episodes  in  the  patient 's  life, 
which  he  has  long  forgotten.  Here,  then, 
is  surely  a  quite  feasible  explanation  for  peo- 
ple suddenly  developing  some  alleged  new 
faculty,  such  as  drawing,  painting,  or  playing 
on  the  piano  under  assumed  spirit  control. 
A  suggestion  has  been  made,  possibly  in  con- 
versation or  in  some  sound  (some  one  has 
sung  a  certain  air,  or  played  a  certain  strain), 
or  possibly  the  suggestion  may  have  been  con- 
veyed in  a  peculiar  scent,  or  in  some  atmos- 
pheric condition;  at  all  events,  it  has  come, 
and  the  recipient's  memory  is  at  once 
awakened ;  maybe  they  are  taken  back  years, 
and  a  faculty  long  allowed  to  lie  dormant  is 
suddenly  resuscitated.  Such  an  occurrence 
would  be  all  the  more  likely  if  the  subject 
were  addicted  to  hysteria.  Dr.  Hart  thinks 


130       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

this  a  positive  explanation  for  automatic 
writing,  at  least,  for  on  the  next  page  (of  the 
same  work)  he  remarks : 

"Automatic  writing  has  flayed  a  large  part  in  the 
history  of  Spiritualism,  and  has  been  attributed  by  sup- 
porters of  that  doctrine  to  the  activity  of  some  spirit- 
ual being  who  avails  himself  of  the  patient's  hand  in 
order  to  manifest  to  the  world  his  desires  and  opinions. 
There  is  no  need,  however,  to  resort  to  fantastic  hypothe- 
ses of  this  type,  and  the  explanation  of  the  phenomenon 
is  comparatively  simple." 

He  then  proceeds  to  give  a  very  detailed 
but  lucid  description  of  the  mental  process 
which  brings  about  the  phenomenon,  and  it 
is  thus  perfectly  well  accounted  for  on  nat- 
ural grounds.  Before  quitting  this  subject 
of  hysteria,  I  should  like  to  draw  attention  to 
certain  statements  which  appear  in  a  work 
(p.  538-9)  entitled  "  Nervous  and  Mental 
Diseases,"  by  Archibald  Church,  M.D.,  and 
Frederick  Peterson,  M.D.  (published  in  Lon- 
don, 1899,  by  the  Rebman  Publishing  Co., 
Ltd.).  They  are:  "It  (hysteria)  was  often 
at  the  bottom  of  the  demoniacal  'possessions' 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  furnished  some  of 
the  martyrs  of  witchcraft  and  religious 
fanaticism.".  "The  studies  of  Charcot 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         131 

and  his  students  have  placed  hysteria  upon 
a  firm  clinical  basis,  and  enabled  nearly  all 
its  manifestations  to  be  traced  to  disturb- 
ances in  the  psychic  sphere  or  in  its  sub- 
strata,"— and  referring  again  to  hysteria 
" Heredity  plays  an  important  part."* 

These  statements  merely  confirm  what  I 
have  already  suggested,  namely,  that  a  cer- 
tain proportion,  at  least,  of  trance  medium- 
ship  and  cases  in  which  the  medium  actually 
speaks  (either  making  use  of  some  tongue 
declared  by  those  present  to  be  unknown  to 
her,  when  in  possession  of  her  customary 
faculties,  or  when  she  adopts  a  voice  at  once 
assumed  to  come  from  another  world)  can  vbe 
accounted  for  by  hysteria,  a  theory  that  will 
be  seen  to  be  still  further  strengthened  by 
the  fact  that  so-called  mediumship  is  often 
said  to  run  in  families. 

Another  work  from  which  I  should  like  to 
quote  is  that  entitled,  "  Spiritism  and  In- 
sanity," by  Dr.  Marcel  Viollet,  Physician  to 
the  Lunatic  Asylums,  Paris  (published,  1910, 
by  Swan  Sonnenschein  &  Co.,  London). 

" Spontaneous  somnambulism,"  Dr.  Viol- 
let  writes  (p.  11),  "is  particularly  easily 
brought  on  with  certain  neuropathic  pa- 


132       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

tients.  Because  of  this  these  persons  fill  an 
important  role  in  Spiritistic  drawing-rooms 
where  hypnotism  is  practiced.  They  be- 
come subjects  in  the  hands  of  the  mediums, 
realizing  experiments  analogous  to  those  of 
extra-lucid  somnambulists;  or  they  reveal 
themselves  spontaneously  as  writing,  or 
speaking,  or  table-telling  mediums."  In  this 
statement  Dr.  Viollet  bears  out  my  theory 
that  hypnotism  plays  a  far  more  subtle  and 
important  role  in  seances  than  is  generally 
imagined.,  I  am  quite  of  the  opinion  that  a 
very  fair  percentage  of  the  phenomena 
credited  to  mediums  are,  in  reality,  due  to 
hypnotism,  to  the  fancies  of  neuropathic  peo- 
ple who  are  experimented  upon  by  mediums 
possessing  the  power  to  hypnotize.  Dr. 
Viollet  continuing,  says,  *  *  The  predisposition 
to  neuropathic  accidents,  commonly  called 
'hysteria,'  manifests  itself  during  the 
seance,  and  the  organizers  of  Spiritistic 
seances  know  well  these  attacks,  so  much  do 
they  fear  them. "  ( See  * '  La  Survie, ' '  by  Mme. 
Noeggerath,  Librarie  Spirite,  42  Rue  St. 
Jacques,  Paris.)  And  again,  "  Further, 
these  neuropathic  persons  have  a  particular 
character  made  up  of  a  certain  instability  in 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         133 

thoughts,  opinions,  projects,  the  itch  of  lying, 
and  the  desire,  sometimes  conscious  but  more 
often  unconscious,  of  drawing  attention  to 
themselves."  "In  addition  to  these  rather 
aggressive  and  militant  neuropathies  we  have 
at  seances,"  so  Dr.  Viollet  informs  us,  "the 
'paranoiacs'  rarely  consenting  to  drop  their 
incognito  which  their  pride  considers  a  pedes- 
tal and  their  susceptibility  a  shield";  also 
"the  feeble,  armed  with  implicit  faith,  fol- 
lowing the  movement  like  sheep  ever  ready 
to  follow  their  leader,"  and  again  we  read 
(p.  12-13),  "hidden  in  the  shadows,  sit  the 
sad,  the  timid,  the  scrupulous,  motionless  and 
dumb,  with  morbid  melancholia  at  their  el- 
bows, or  crouching  behind  them,  ever  ready 
to  pounce  upon  them.  .  .  .  Here  they  are, 
these  predisposed,  over  whom  dark-browed 
insanity  has  cast  its  tentacle;  they  are  here 
in  the  rooms  of  Spiritism — come  here  to  in- 
toxicate themselves  with  mystery  as  with  a 
poison." 

These  views  are  quite  in  keeping  with  the 
impressions  I  myself  have  received  at 
seances  and  other  Spiritualistic  meetings, 
and,  though  not  flattering,  they  appear  to  be, 
at  all  events,  honest.  Referring  to  the  same 


134       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

performances,  Dr.  Viollet  says,  "Some  bring 
their  progressive  insanity,  others  their  senile 
intellectual  decay.  (N.B. — I  have  said  that 
Spiritualism  usually  attracts  the  old,  seldom 
the  young.)  The  Spiritistic  idea  takes  quick 
root  in  this  sickly  soil,  where  delirium  is 
crouching  low,  delirium  which  will  be  swayed 
by  Spiritistic  pre-occupations. "  He  be- 
comes even  less  guarded  as  he  goes  on,  and 
speaks  with  a  candor,  which,  though  some- 
what unconventional,  is  quite  excusable  in  a 
foreigner,  as  foreigners,  particularly  French- 
men, do  not  see  the  necessity  of  being  delicate 
when  referring  to  glaring  evils.  "Others," 
Dr.  Viollet  observes,  still  referring  to  the 
habitues  of  seances,  "intoxicated  by  various 
causes,  alcohol,  morphine,  hashish,  cocaine, 
ether,  will,  through  their  favorite  poison, 
have  their  attack  of  delirium,  but  as  they  are 
convinced  Spiritists,  their  ravings  will  take 
their  color  from  Spiritism,  theywill  be  hunted 
down  and  persecuted  by  the  imaginary  dis- 
incarnated." 

From  these  extracts  on-e  can,  I  think,  form 
a  fairly  correct  idea  of  Dr.  Viollet *s  opinions 
with  regard  to  seances.  I  can  only  add  that 
should  any  one  still  lack  the  conviction  that 


ITS  EFFECT  ON  HEALTH         135 

Dr.  Viollet  has  sufficient  grounds  for  these 
opinions,  his  doubts  would  be  immediately 
dispelled  were  he  to  read  Dr.  Viollet 's  book. 
I  have  now,  with  one  exception,  exhausted 
the  quotations  I  intended  making  use  of  for 
the  purpose  of  illustrating  "The  Dangers  of 
Spiritualism"  from  the  health  point  of  view, 
but  I  think  enough  has  been  said  to  make  it 
evident  to  all  but  the  extremely  partial  and 
prejudiced,  firstly,  that  Spiritualism,  with 
all  it  comprehends,  namely,  continually  sit- 
ting in  the  dark  or  semi-dark,  in  a  state  of 
nervous  tension,  and  straining  the  sight, 
hearing,  and  heart  almost  to  bursting-point 
—constantly  trying  to  force  on  an  unnatural 
condition  of  trance — peering  for  hours  at  a 
time  into  a  crystal,  and  always  fancying  one 
is  hearing  spirit  sounds  or  seeing  spiritual 
phenomena — is  not  only  injurious  to  the 
health  of  the  strongest,  but  absolutely  fatal 
to  the  health  of  that  class  of  people  it 
especially  caters  for,  and  invariably  en- 
tangles in  its  meshes,  i.e.,  the  abnormal, 
epileptic,  hysterical,  and  weak-minded;  and, 
secondly,  that  the  majority,  at  all  events,  of 
the  phenomena  Spiritualists  declare  to  be  due 
to  super-physical  agency  can  be  shown  by 


136       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

medical  men  to  be  due  chiefly  to  hysteria,  and 
epilepsy,  as  well  as  to  other  physical  and 
mental  diseases  of  a  similar  nature. 

The  following  quotation  I  have  held  over 
until  now,  as  it  makes,  I  think,  a  fitting  con- 
clusion to  this  chapter.  It  is  taken  from  the 
oft-times  referred  to  Report  of  Dr.  G.  M. 
Robertson,  Superintendent  of  the  Royal 
Asylum  of  Morningside,  Edinburgh. 

"I  feel  it  necessary  at  this  time,  as  the  result  of  several 
cases  that  have  come  under  my  care,  to  utter  a  note  of 
warning  to  those  who  are  seeking  consolation  in  their 
sorrows  by  practical  experiments  in  the  domain  of 
Spiritualism.  ...  I  would  remind  inquirers  into  the 
subject  that  if  they  would  meet  those  who  are  hear- 
ing messages  from  spirits  every  hour  of  the  day,  who 
are  seeing  forms,  angelic  and  human,  surrounding  them, 
that  are  invisible  to  ordinary  persons,  and  who  are  re- 
ceiving other  manifestations  of  an  equally  occult  nature, 
they  only  require  to  go  to  a  mental  hospital  to  find 
them.  ...  I  desire  to  warn  those  who  may  possibly 
inherit  a  latent  tending  to  nervous  disorders  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  practical  inquiries  of  a  Spiritualistic 
nature,  lest  they  should  awaken  this  dormant  proclivity 
to  hallucinations  within  their  brains." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD  OF  ALL  KINDS  AT  SEANCES 

I  NOW  come  to  another  danger  which  faces 
those  who  adopt  the  cult  of  Spiritualism  and 
take  up  seances  at  every  turn,  and  that  is  the 
danger  of  being  tricked.  I  believe  that  for 
one  medium  who  does  at  times  conscien- 
tiously endeavor  to  get  in  touch  with  bond 
fide  spirits  of  the  dead,  there  are  ninety-nine 
who  never  make  such  an  attempt,  but  wholly 
rely  on  their  powers  of  deception,  in  order  to 
rake  in  the  shekels,  which  is  the  goal  of  all 
mediumship.  I  will  deal  with  the  table-tilt- 
ing medium  first.  Now  I  am  neither  a  con- 
juror nor  a  scientist,  so  that  I  must  regard 
the  question  purely  from  the  view-point  of 
the  looker-on,  the  person  possessed  with  the 
average  amount,  perhaps,  of  observation  and 
common  sense.  To  begin  with,  I  have  been 
to  innumerable  seances,  some  of  them  con- 
ducted by  mediums,  who  have  lately  acquired 
considerable  notoriety  through  the  "back- 
ing" of  several  eminent  professors  of  phy- 

137 


138       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

sics,  and  I  have  never  yet  been  convinced  that 
anything  that  has  taken  place  when  any  of 
these  scientific  psychics  have  been  present 
has  in  any  way  been  due  to  bond  fide  spirit 
intervention.  It  is  so  easy  to  make  a  table, 
of  the  weight  and  dimensions  of  those  usually 
used  on  such  occasions,  tilt.  Try  it  for  your- 
self, and  you  will  find  that  a  very  little  down- 
ward pressure  with  the  tips  of  your  fingers 
will  cause  the  side  opposite  you  to  rise.  I 
have  frequently  watched  the  fingers,  arms, 
and  mouth  (the  mouth  is  a  very  sure  indica- 
tor) of  mediums  when  they  have  been  at  the 
table,  and  I  have  often  seen  unmistakable 
signs  there  of  pressure  being  used,  a  pressure 
which  can,  as  a  rule,  be  exerted  with  impu- 
nity, since  mediums  generally  prefer  to  hold 
their  seances  in  the  dark,  pretending  that 
such  a  condition  is  very  helpful,  if  not  ac- 
tually essential  to  spirit  communication. 
Neither  they  nor  their  patrons,  the  Spiritual- 
istic chemists,  however,  can  explain  why  it  is 
that  spirits,  when  they  materialize  spontane- 
ously in  haunted  localities,  do  so  very  fre- 
quently in  broad  daylight.  The  legs  of 
mediums  should  be  watched,  too,  for  I  have 
heard  of  instances,  when  so-called  spirit 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         139 

knocks  have  been  produced  by  very  material 
toes  and  knees.  Tapping  can  very  easily  be 
manipulated  by  pressing  on  the  table  in  such 
a  manner  that  it  gives  little  creaking  noises 
that  the  medium  knows  well  will  at  once  be 
exaggerated  by  some  of  the  sitters  into  taps 
or  raps.  As  for  the  table  running  round 
the  room,  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that 
when  the  medium,  or,  perhaps,  an  accomplice, 
has  once  given  an  impetus  to  the  table,  cer- 
tain of  the  sitters  become  so  excited  that  they 
unconsciously  assist  in  the  movement,  their 
exertions  passing  unoticed  in  the  general 
hubbub  and  excitement.  I  believe  it  is  some- 
times claimed  that  tables  have  occasionally 
risen  right  off  the  ground,  but  I  have  never 
been  present  at  such  an  occasion;  all  the 
same,  I  have  seen  equally  apparently  inex- 
plicable feats  accomplished  by  professional 
conjurors,  and  believe  that  Mr.  Nevil  Maske- 
lyne,  or  any  other  expert  who  is  well  versed 
in  the  theory  of  magic,  could  very  easily  ac- 
count for  the  so-called  phenomena  on  per- 
fectly natural  grounds. 

I  would  here  once  again  remark  how 
utterly  footling  it  is  for  Spiritualists  to  at- 
tempt to  bolster  up  the  phenomenal  side  of 


140       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

their  cause,  by  asserting  that  the  demon- 
strations given  by  such  and  such  a  medium 
must  be  genuine  because  Sir  Oliver  Lodge, 
Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  or  Sir  Somebody 
else — please  note  well  it  is  nearly  always  a 
sir — no  one  gauges  the  snobbishness  of  the 
average  B.  P.  better  than  these  Spiritual- 
ists— guarantee  that  they  are  genuine. 
Why  should  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  or  Sir  A.  C. 
Doyle  be  better  able  to  tell  whether  a  medium 
tricks  or  not,  than  any  ordinarily  observant 
bank  manager,  butcher  or  bootblack?  The 
chemical  laboratory  is  a  poor  training  school 
for  the  study  of  human  nature  and  common 
or  garden  trickery,  and  the  writings  of  and 
recent  addresses  given  by  Sir  A.  C.  Doyle 
suggest  very  strongly  that  he  has  always 
been  prejudiced  in  favor  of  Spiritualism, 
and  extremely  partial  to  its  devotees.  No, 
the  people  most  capable  of  judging  the  per- 
formances of  mediums  are  professional  ex- 
perts in  conjuring,  and  absolutely  unbiased 
men  and  women  of  the  world,  who  have 
continually  rubbed  shoulders  with  all  kinds 
and  conditions,  and  know  something  about 
humanity  when  it  is  very  subtle  and  plausi- 
ble, and  desperately  anxious  to  make  money. 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD 

To  revert  to  the  table.  When  the  room  is 
dark,  anything  of  course  may  happen,  for 
you  can  never  trust  any  one.  The  temptation 
to  make  something  happen — just  a  creak,  or 
a  tilt,  or  any  little  movement — anything  to 
relieve  the  monotony,  and  make  the  pulses 
throb  a  trifle  faster,  is  too  great  to  be  resisted, 
especially  if  there  are  women  present.  My 
experience  points  to  the  fact  that  women  are 
far  more  unscrupulous  in  these  matters  than 
men.  N-ow,  with  regard  to  the  messages.  I 
cannot  say  that  anything  I  read  in  the  much- 
advertised  "Raymond"  impressed  me  in  the 
slightest.  Indeed,  it  left  me  astonishingly 
cold,  since  from  the  many  allusions  I  had 
heard  in  private  and  seen  published  in  the 
newspapers,  to  what  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  was 
supposed  to  have  discovered  concerning  an- 
other life,  I  had  certainly  been  led  to  expect 
something,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  very  much 
more  to  the  point. 

Of  course  every  professional  medium  in 
London  knows  all  about  Sir  Oliver  Lodge; 
they  make  a  point  of  knowing  the  private 
history  of  all  those  who  will,  in  all  prob- 
ability, one  day  visit  them.  That  is  part  of 
their  stock-in-trade,  and  can  be  very  easily 


MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

accomplished.  Club  mates,  friends,  servants 
can  always  be  got  at  in  some  manner  or 
another.  Clever  women  can  ferret  out  any- 
thing (they  make  excellent  detectives),  so 
that  it  is  not  at  all  surprising  that  when  Sir 
O.  Lodge  attends  a  table  seance,  messages  at 
once  come  through  for  him  and  allude  to 
something  he  fondly  imagines  is  known  only 
to  his  family  circle.  Flukes,  too,  go  a  long 
way.  Sir  Oliver  is  apparently  immensely 
impressed  because  a  medium  occasionally 
tells  him  something  quite  true ;  one  would  like 
to  know  how  many  times  the  mediums  in 
whom  he  obviously  places  implicit  trust  miss 
the  mark  altogether.  We  hear  much  of  their 
successes  but  very  little  of  their  failures,  and 
I  know  from -my  own  and  other  people's  ex- 
periences that  the  failures  of  mediums  very 
far  outnumber  their  so-called  successes.  In 
my  opinion,  when  they  do  happen  to  strike 
a  winner,  it  is  almost  invariably  either  by 
chance,  or  by  an  inference  relating  to  some 
little  piece  of  information  they  have  suc- 
ceeded in  obtaining  beforehand.  I  can  see 
nothing  in  ' '  Raymond ' '  to  convince  me  to  the 
contrary,  and  my  opinion  is  strengthened  by 
the  piffling  nature  of  certain  of  the  messages 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         143 

which  are  scandalously  attributed  to  a  spirit 
of  the  dead.  Death  is  a  serious  ordeal ;  there 
can  be  no  doubt  whatsoever  on  that  score. 
No  one  who  has  ever  beheld  a  sane  person 
dying  has  seen  him  give  way  to  flippancy 
and  laughter  at  the  moment  of  passing  away. 
They  have  never  died  regarding  death  as  a 
mere  matter  for  jest,  and  this  being  so,  pro- 
vided there  is  such  a  thing  as  memory  in  the 
other  world,  it  is  more  than  likely  that  the 
spirit  mind  would  have  been  so  deeply 
affected  by  all  it  had  gone  through,  that  far 
from  being  hilarious,  it  would  undoubtedly 
be  most  solemn  and  reflective.  I  can  recol- 
lect no  instance — and  my  experience,  as  I  can 
very  easily  prove,  has  been  a  fairly  large  one 
—of  any  spirit  that  has  returned  spontane- 
ously, i.  e.,  without  the  intervention  of  a 
medium,  ever  appearing  in  the  least  degree 
mirthful,  or  inspiring  any  one  with  feelings 
other  than  of  fear,  awe,  or  veneration;  nor 
has  there  ever  been,  in  such  visitations,  any- 
thing to  indicate  that  the  other  world  is  in 
any  degree  frivolous  or  the  least  bit  like  that 
described  in  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 's  book. 

In  my  opinion,  the  future  life  which  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge   portrays   in   " Raymond'* — a 


144       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

life  of  cigarettes,  whiskies-and-sodas,  and  ab- 
surdly constituted  garments — is  not  only  an 
utter  contradiction  to  that  depicted  in  the 
Bible  and  sacred  literature  of  all  established 
old-world  religions;  it  is  also  a  complete  re- 
pudiation of  an  idea  of  life  beyond  the  grave 
as  conveyed  to  us  by  the  whole  history  of 
ghostdom.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  attributes  this 
description  to  the  spirit  of  one  who  was  very 
precious  to  him,  but,  in  my  opinion  again, 
such  a  description  could  only  have  emanated 
from  some  mischievous,  impersonating  spirit 
that  was  never  of  our  flesh  and  blood,  or 
could  only  have  owed  its  origin  (a  theory 
which,  I  think,  is  far  more  probable)  to  the 
imagination  of  an  enterprising  and  quick- 
witted medium.  Have  you  noticed  at  table 
seances  where  you  are  thoroughly  satisfied 
that  the  medium  cannot  really  know  anything 
whatsoever  about  the  sitters,  that  you  never 
get  anything  quite  distinctive,  anything,  for 
example,  that  might  not  apply  equally  well 
to  every  one  else  in  the  room.  For  example, 
a  message  comes  through  for  "K.  B.,"  and 
the  medium  at  once  asks  if  there  is  a  "K.  B. " 
present,  or  if  any  one  present  knows  or  once 
knew  a  "K.  B."  Now  the  initials  "K.  B." 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         145 

are  fairly  common;  most  of  us  have  met,  at 
some  time  or  other,  a  Katie  Brown,  or  some 
other  Katie  B.,  since  there  are  dozens  of  sur- 
names beginning  with  B.  The  medium  is 
thus  on  fairly  safe  ground;  nor  do  her  sur- 
mises fail,  for  some  one,  perhaps  more  than 
one  person  present,  at  once  claims  knowledge 
of  a  K.  B.  who,  they  state,  passed  over  some 
years  ago.  All  is  now,  of  course,  compar- 
atively plain  sailing,  and  a  message  is  at  once 
tilted  out  of  the  usual  non-committal  order, 
as,  for  instance,  "K.  B."  says  she  is  very 
happy,  and  is  particularly  anxious  no  one 
still  alive  should  continue  to  mourn  for  her; 
or  "K.  B."  wants  to  warn  you.  (Warnings 
are  a  great  stunt,  they  have  just  that  air  of 
mystery  about  them  that  is  particularly  fas- 
cinating. We  do  so  like  to  be  important — to 
feel  that  we  are  of  so  much  account  that  we 
can  incur  some  one's  bitter  animosity  or  jeal- 
ousy. Life,  as  mediums  know  only  too  well, 
would  not  be  worth  living  were  it  not  for 
these  vile  yet  elusive  snakes  in  the  grass  who 
are  eternally  plotting  our  downfall.)  Hence, 
when  "K.  B."  announces  her  desire  to  warn, 
every  one  is  at  once  thrilled,  and  the  lucky  in- 
dividual for  whom  the  message  is  intended 


146       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

feels  a  hero  or  heroine,  as  the  case  may  be, 
on  the  spot.  * '  Do  you  know  any  one  likely  to 
wish  you  ill  ? "  asks  the  medium.  There  is  a 
momentary  pause,  and  then  a  slow  and  very 
emphatic  "yes."  "A  woman?'7  the  medium 
continues  knowingly.  Again  a  slow  "yes." 
(Who  doesn't  know  a  woman  who  wishes 
them  ill?  Most  of  us  know  a  good  many.) 
"Then,"  the  medium  says,  with  the  most 
impressive  air  of  conviction,  "mark  my 
words,  it  is  about  that  woman  the  table 
wishes  to  warn  you.  Is  it  not  sol"  and  to 
every  one's  unfeigned  satisfaction  the  table 
tilts  out  "yes."  The  recipient  then  wants  to 
know  who  the  woman  is,  and  the  reply  that 
comes  is  either,  "A  fair  lady,"  or,  "A  middle- 
aged  lady,"  or,  "M.  H.,"  or  some  other 
equally  ordinary  initials,  but  never  anything 
very  specific.  '  *  Can 't  you  give  the  surname, ' ' 
the  recipient  inquires,  but  the  table  only  re- 
sponds with  Mary  or  Molly.  "Don't  you 
know  a  Mary  or  Molly  H.?"  the  medium 
asks,  and  the  recipient  says,  "Yes,  several" 
(for  of  course  all  of  us  have  at  one  time  or 
another  met  a  Mary  Harrison  or  a  Molly 
Hill).  "Then  you  may  depend  it's  one  of 
them  'K.  B.'  wishes  to  warn  you  against," 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         147 

the  medium  observes ;  and  after  a  little  more 
conversation  the  person  for  whom  the  mes- 
sages profess  to  come,  lets  out  that  she  or  he 
certainly  does  know  a  Molly  Hill  with  whom 
they  are  not  on  very  friendly  terms.  "Is  it 
Molly  Hill?"  the  medium  at  once  asks  of  the 
table,  and  the  reply,  of  course,  is  "yes." 

"There  now,"  the  medium  exclaims  trium- 
phantly, *  *  I  knew  '  K.  B. '  had  something  very 
important  to  communicate  to  you.  I  felt  it 
all  along.  It  was  to  put  you  on  your  guard 
against  Molly  Hill."  Then,  turning  to  the 
table,  she  inquires,  "Is  there  anything 
further  you  wish  to  say?"  and  the  table  very 
conveniently  tilts  out  "no,"  and  some  other 
spirit  shortly  afterwards  declares  itself  to  be 
present.  And  so  on  and  on  ad  infinitum — 
always  the  same  "fit-easy"  type  of  questions 
and  always  the  same  fit-easy  type  of  answers 
— answers  that  are  invariably  aided  by  in- 
formation the  medium  manages  to  extract 
adroitly  from  one  or  other  of  the  sitters. 
It  is  a  significant  fact  that,  despite  the 
numbers  of  very  clever  people  who  have 
passed  over,  and  who  would,  according  to  the 
Spiritualistic  theory  of  evolution  and  pro- 
gression, still  go  on  endeavoring  to  improve 


148       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

their  minds,  no  information  that  has  been  of 
the  slightest  value  to  scientific  or  medical  re- 
search has  ever  been  obtained,  either  through 
the  table  or  through  any  other  mediumistic 
agency.  All  the  messages  so  far  have  been 
either  trite,  vulgar,  blasphemous,  libelous, 
or  silly  and  sentimental.  Far  from  evolving 
mentally,  the  spirits  of  even  the  greatest  of 
those  who  have  passed  over  would  appear  to 
have  hopelessly  degenerated.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  however,  I  think  that  most  of  the  so- 
called  spirit  messages  delivered  by  the  table 
are  purely  subjective,  that  is  to  say,  they 
originate  in  the  medium's  own  mind.  Con- 
stant practice  soon  makes  her  expert  in 
summing-up  her  clients  from  their  personal 
appearance.  Face  and  dress  reveal  many 
things ;  they  are  very  sure  givers-away. 

A  very  few  tactful  and  apparently  quite  in- 
nocent, lucky  questions,  answered  unsuspect- 
ingly and  naturally,  give  the  medium  just 
the  amount  of  information  she  requires  for 
a  start ;  for  the  rest  she  trusts  to  chance,  and 
to  any  inspiration  she  may  obtain  through 
covert  glances  at  her  client, -and  from  further 
scraps  of  conversation.  Moreover,  the  war 
has  made  people  so  anxious  to  glean  tidings 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         149 

of  another  world  that  they  will  jump  at  any- 
thing, however  remote  and  trivial,  that  in 
any  way  suggests  a  possibility  of  the  super- 
physical  ;  and  of  this  mediums  are  thoroughly 
well  aware.  They  know  they  have  only  to 
weave  even  the  barest  semblance  of  truth 
into  one  of  their  messages,  and  their  poor, 
half-demented  clients  will  joyfully  accept  all 
that  follows,  convinced  that  it  is  of  spirit 
origin. 

Besides,  as  I  have  said  before,  we  always 
hear  of  a  medium's  successes,  but  we  are 
never  told  of  his  failures;  and  though  our 
attention  is  invariably  demanded  whenever 
the  hammer  succeeds  in  hitting  the  nail  on 
the  head,  we  are  left  in  blissful  ignorance 
of  the  many  times  the  hammer  descends  and 
misses  the  mark  altogether.  Some  Spirit- 
ualists fancy  they  see  a  way  out  of  this 
dilemna  by  suggesting  that  one  must  expect 
certain  discrepancies  in  spirit  messages, 
since  there  are  unreliable,  as  well  as  truth- 
ful spirits,  just  as  there  are  unreliable,  as 
well  as  truthful  people.  It  may  be  so,  I 
admit,  but  I  think  most  persons  will  agree 
that  a  much  more  feasible  explanation  is  that 
there  are  inventive  and  lying  mediums,  and 


150       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

that  the  untruths,  far  from  originating  in  an- 
other, emanate  wholly  from  this  world. 

However,  no  matter  whether  the  fact  is  due 
to  lying  spirits  or  to  lying  mediums,  by  far 
the  greater  number  of  the  messages  tilted 
out  at  seances  are  wholly  untrustworthy; 
and,  of  these,  many  are  calculated  to  do  a 
great  deal  of  harm.  Apart  from  the  shock 
occasioned  by  an  abrupt  announcement  that 
some  very  near  relative  is  either  seriously 
ill  or  dead,  mischief  of  another  kind  is  not  in- 
frequently perpetuated;  for  instance,  the 
most  abominable  scandals  are  occasionally  set 
in  circulation,  jealousy  and  suspicion  is 
created,  friendships  and  engagements  are 
broken  off,  and  wives  are  set  against  their 
husbands.  Regarding  the  latter,  I  know  that 
such  attempts  at  breaking-up  households 
have  been  repeatedly  and  deliberately  made. 
As  I  have  stated  elsewhere,  this  attack  on 
men  is  the  latest  stunt  in  mediumship,  and, 
in  my  opinion  again,  it  owes  its  origin  to  a 
very  large  extent  to  the  more  militant  section 
of  the  Women's  Eights  Movement. 

Finally,  seeing  how  often  seances  are  used 
for  sinister  purposes,  how  little  they  can 
ever  really  benefit  mankind,  and,  on  the  con- 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         151 

trary,  what  an  immeasurable  amount  of 
harm  they  can  do,  I  cannot  conceive  how  any 
really  thoughtful  and  rational  person  can 
recommend  them  to  their  friends,  or  to  any 
one  for  whom  they  have  the  slightest  con- 
sideration or  esteem.  In  fact,  I  think  we 
cannot  censure  too  strongly  the  various  em- 
inent scientists  and  authors  who,  at  the  pres- 
ent moment,  are  making  use  of  the  Press  as  a 
medium  for  propagating  their  belief  in  such 
a  pernicious  and  dangerous  cult  as  that  of 
Spiritualism.  But  to  revert  to  the  origin  of 
the  messages  received  through  the  table.  I 
think  what  is  often  accredited  to  spirits 
(besides  being  accounted  for  by  conscious  or 
unconscious  trickery)  might  well  be  due  to 
thought-reading,  suggestion,  or  animal  mag- 
netism; and  should  there,  by  any  chance, 
be  a  bond  fide  spirit  present,  it  is  far  more 
likely  to  belong  to  a  mischievous  or  evil  class 
of  spirit — akin  to  the  demons  in  the  Bible — 
a  class  that  has  never  been  of  our  flesh  and 
blood — than  to  be  the  spirit  of  any  human 
being  that  has  passed  over.  I  do  think  it 
is  possible  that  a  spirit  of  the  dead  may,  on 
some  rare  occasion,  be  present  at  a  seance, 
but,  I  believe,  when  such  a  spirit  does  come, 


152       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

it  comes  quite  spontaneously,  as  it  would  in 
a  house  that  is  haunted,  and  quite  irrespec- 
tive of  the  call  of  any  professional  medium, 
who  is,  by-the-bye,  far  more  likely  to  keep 
this  type  of  spirit  away  than  to  attract  it. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  of  interest  to  note  here 
what  Professor  Faraday  had  to  say  on  the 
question  of  table-turning,  which  at  about  the 
time  he  wrote  (1853),  was  greatly  occupying 
the  public  mind.  A  number  of  explanations 
were  then  volunteered  as  to  the  phenomena, 
which  were  popularly  credited  with  taking 
place,  among  them  being  electricity,  magnet- 
ism, some  unknown  and  hitherto  unrecog- 
nized physical  power  which  affects  inanimate 
bodies,  the  revolution  of  the  earth,  and  dia- 
bolical supernatural  agency.  Professor  Far- 
aday had  an  idea  that  a  quasi-involuntary 
muscular  action  was  the  real  cause  of  the 
table  tilting  and  moving  round,  and  he  made 
an  experiment  to  see  if  his  surmises  were 
correct.  What  followed  is  best  explained  by 
my  referring  to  page  172  of  a  work  entitled 
"Popular  Errors,"  by  John  Timbs,  F.  S.  A. 
(published  1880,  by  Crosby,  Lockwood  &  Co., 
London).  The  following  is  the  extract: 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         153 

"For  this  purpose,  he  (Professor  Faraday)  provided 
an  apparatus  with  index  attached;  it  consisted  of  two 
small,  flat  pieces  of  wood  held  together  by  indiarubber 
springs,  and  separated  by  small  rollers  that  allowed  the 
pieces  of  wood  to  move  freely  over  each  other.  The 
movement  of  the  upper  one  was  shown  by  an  index  that 
pointed  to  the 'right,  or  to  the  left,  according  to  the  di- 
rection of  the  motion.  This  little  apparatus,  when 
placed  under  the  hands  of  a  practiced  table-turner,  had 
the  curious  effect  of  paralyzing  his  power  when  he 
looked  at  the  index,  and  thus  became  conscious  of  the 
real  movement  of  his  hands;  but  when  the  index  was 
concealed  from  view  the  table  began  to  turn  as  briskly 
as  if  the  apparatus  did  not  intervene.  This  proved  that 
the  movement  of  the  table  was  effected  by  the  direct  ac- 
tion of  the  muscles  exerted  involuntarily.  Again,  Pro- 
fessor Faraday  observes:  'The  most  valuable  effect  of 
this  test  apparatus  is  the  corrective  power  it  possesses 
over  the  mind  of  the  table-turner.  As  soon  as  the  index 
is  placed  before  the  most  earnest,  and  they  perceive — as 
in  my  presence  they  have  always  done — that  it  tells 
whether  they  are  pressing  downwards  only,  or  obliquely, 
then  all  effects  of  table-turning  cease,  even  though  the 
parties  persevere,  earnestly  desiring  motion,  till  they  be- 
come weary  and  worn  out.  No  prompting  or  checking 
the  hand  is  needed,  the  power  is  gone;  and  this  only  be- 
cause the  parties  are  made  conscious  of  what  they  are 
really  doing  mechanically,  and  so  are  unable  unwittingly 
to  deceive  themselves.' " 

Of   course,   Professor   Faraday   takes   a 


154       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

wholly  materialistic  view  of  the  subject, 
which  is  possibly  a  little  out  of  date,  but,  at 
the  same  time,  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
his  test  might  prove  effectual,  were  it  applied 
to  the  majority  of  tiltings  and  turnings  of 
the  table  at  present-day  seances,  especially 
those  presided  over  by  professional  mediums. 
In  the  same  work  we  find  some  interesting 
remarks  by  Arago  in  ' l  Meteorological 
Essays,"  to  show  that  the  same  force  utilized 
in  moving  tables  can  be  imparted  to  other 
objects  as  well,  and  need  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  super-physical.  On  page  173  we 
find  Arago  quoting  from  *  *  The  Philosophical 
Transactions"  Mr.  Ellicot's  experiments 
upon  two  pendulum  clocks,  enclosed  in  sepa- 
rate cases,  suspended  from  a  wooden  plank 
affixed  to  the  same  wall,  and  at  a  distance  of 
twenty-three  and  a  half  English  inches  from 
each  other.  "At  first  only  one  of  these  two 
clocks  was  going,  the  second  clock  was  at 
rest.  After  a  certain  time  this  second  clock 
was  found  to  have  been  set  going  by  the  im- 
perceptible vibrations  transmitted  to  its 
pendulum  from  the  pendulum  of  the  first 
clock  through  the  medium  of  the  intervening 
solid  bodies.  A  very  singular  circumstance 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         155 

is  that  after  a  certain  time  longer,  while  the 
pendulum  of  the  second  clock  (the  one  which 
had  just  been  at  rest)  vibrated  in  the  largest 
arc  which  the  construction  of  the  clock  would 
permit,  the  pendulum  of  the  first  clock,  the 
one  which  at  first  was  the  only  one  go- 
ing, had  arrived  at  a  state  of  entire  rest." 
Arago's  object  was  to  show  that  there  al- 
ready existed  in  science  instances  of  com- 
munication analogous  to  those  which  have 
been  recently  presented  through  turning 
tables,  and  of  which  the  explanation  does  not 
require  any  of  those  mysterious  influences 
to  which  recourse  has  been  had  in  the  case 
of  the  tables.  Hence  it  will  be  seen  from  the 
testimony  of  another  authority  how  probable 
it  is  that  the  physical  is  really  responsible 
for  the  marvels  that  take  place  at  table- 
turning,  and  how  thoroughly  unwise  and  even 
dangerous  it  is  for  people  to  place  any  con- 
fidence in  the  messages  received  through 
tables,  messages  which  mediums  and  others 
declare  come  from  another  world. 

I  now  pass  on  to  the  subject  of  professional 
clairvoyancy.  I  once  went  to  a  seance  in  a 
room  within  a  mile  or  so  of  Piccadilly  Circus. 
There  must  have  been  about  sixty  people 


156       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

present,  and  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
the  medium,  according  to  her  statements,  saw 
quite  as  many  spirits  as  there  were  people. 
Apparently  she  saw  one  behind  each  chair, 
and  she  rattled  off  descriptions  of  them  with 
as  much  ease  and  nonchalance  as  if  she  had 
been  counting  chickens,  or  checking  off 
figures  in  an  accountant's  office.  Surely, 
spirits  of  the  dead  must,  of  necessity,  be  awe- 
some, at  least  such  is  the  opinion  of  most 
people  who  have  had  the  misfortune  to  en- 
counter them  in  haunted  houses — but  the 
spirits  of  the  dead,  present  on  this  occasion, 
seem  to  have  been  regarded  by  the  medium 
with  neither  fear  nor  respect,  for  she  dis- 
posed of  them  one  after  another  with  rather 
less  ceremony  than  one  disposes  of  old 
clothes. 

This  is  the-  sort  of  thing  that  happened. 
The  medium  standing  on  the  platform  and 
pointing  energetically  at  a  rather  stout 
gentleman  sitting  in  the  center  of  the  second 
row:  "I  see  a  spirit  standing  behind  you,  sir. 
No,  not  you,  but  the  gentleman  with  the  red 
tie.  The  spirit  is  of  medium  height,  not  too 
fat,  nor  yet  too  thin,  but  just  comfortable. 
It  is  of  medium  coloring,  neither  very  fair, 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         157 

nor  yet  very  dark ;  its  hair  is  beginning  to  go 
gray.  It  has  a  mustache,  and  answers  to 
the  name  of  George.  Do  you  know  any  one 
of  that  name,  sir?" 

RATHER  STOUT  GENTLEMAN:  "Dozens,  and 
your  description  might  suit  any  one  of  them." 

MEDIUM  (rather  angrily) :  "Well  it's  one 
of  them,  sir,  and  he  is  looking  at  you  very 
earnestly,  as  if  he  were  anxious  to  tell  you 
something. ' ' 

RATHER  STOUT  GENTLEMAN:  "Then  it  must 
be  George  Hammond.  I  believe  I  once 
borrowed  half-a-crown  from  him  and  he 
wants  to  remind  me  of  it,  I  suppose." 

There  is  a  slight  laughter,  and  the  medium 
at  once  points  at  some  one  else. 

*  *  The  lady  over  there  in  the  third  row  with 
the  green  ribbon  on  her  hat.  There  is  a  very 
old  lady  standing  behind  you.  She  is  resting 
one  hand  on  your  chair,  and  is  eyeing  you 
very  affectionately.  She  is  of  moderate 
height — neither  very  tall  nor  very  short. 
Rather  pale,  with  gray  hair.  She  answers 
to  the  name  of  Mary.  Have  you  ever  known 
any  old  lady  of  that  name,  madam?" 

LADY  WITH  GREEN  HAT:  "Several.  My 
grandmother  was  called  Mary,  and  two  of 


158       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

my  aunts  also,  and  I  have  known  several 
elderly  ladies  who  were  Marys.  Can't  you 
tell  me  something  more  definite?  What  is 
her  surname?" 

MEDIUM:  "She  says  she  can't  say, 
madam,  that  something  is  calling  her  away, 
but  that  she  will  visit  you  again  later. ' ' 

LADY  WITH  GREEN  HAT:  "But  her  sur- 
name ? ' ' 

The  medium,  taking  no  notice,  turns  to 
some  one  else  and  at  once  begins  to  describe 
another  spirit,  this  time — answering  to  the 
name  of  William.  And  so  the  fiasco  con- 
tinues. Sometimes  there  is  an  emphatic 
denial.  The  person  behind  whom  a  spirit  is 
alleged  to  stand  declares  he  or  she  has  never 
known  any  one  with  such  a  name,  whereupon 
the  medium,  who  is  doubtless  well  prepared 
ix)r  such  an  emergency,  at  once  announces 
that  it  (the  spirit)  is  meant  for  some  one  else 
and  has  mistaken  the  chair. 

Who  can  believe  that  such  rubbish  as  this 
could  possibly  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
spirit  world? 

And  yet  seances  of  this  type  are  far  from 
uncommon;  you  can  often  see  them  adver- 
tised. Most  mediums  prefer,  however,  to 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         159 

give  their  clients  a  private  sitting,  for  a  two- 
fold reason.  Firstly,  because  there  is  more 
money  in  it — the  charges  for  private  sittings 
often  run  into  pounds ;  and  secondly,  because 
there  is  less  chance  of  interruption.  The 
modus  operandi  is  more  or  less  the  same. 
Generally  several  spirits  are  seen,  and  their 
description  is  so  vague  that  it  is  bound  to  fit 
in  with  some  one.  Moreover,  the  medium  can 
always  count  on  receiving  no  inconsiderable 
amount  of  help  from  the  client.  She  has 
only  to  give  the  broad  outlines  of  a  face  for 
her  client  to  fill  in  the  features.  The  tall, 
thin  man  in  khaki,  pressing  a  handkerchief  or 
photo  to  his  heart,  is  at  once  metamorphosed 
by  the  agonized  young  widow  client  into  the 
most  accurate  description  of  her  dead  hus- 
band, though  goodness  alone  knows  how 
many  other  sons  and  husbands  the  same  de- 
scription— which  became  a  very  common 
stock-in-trade  with  the  mediums  during  the 
war — has  previously  furnished.  Spirits 
seen  on  these  occasions  generally  have  some 
message  to  give,  though  how  it  is  conveyed 
to  the  medium  without  any  one  else  being 
aware  of  it  is  one  of  the  many  mysteries  con- 
nected with  the  business  of  mediumship  for 


160       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

business  it  undoubtedly  is — that  Spiritual- 
ists do  not  attempt  to  explain. 

The  kind  of  message  the  medium  professes 
to  receive  is  again  of  the  "  fit-easy "  type,  in 
full  accordance  with  the  description  of  the 
donor.  It  not  infrequently  takes  this 
form : — 

MEDIUM:  "He  (the  spirit)  says  you  are  to 
look  in  the  pockets  of  his  clothes — or  else  in 
the  chest  of  drawers,  he  isn't  quite  sure  which 
— for  a  letter  he  received  shortly  before  he 
left  home. " 

CLIENT:  "A  letter!  How  very  extraor- 
dinary! Why,  I  came  across  several.  I 
wonder  which  of  them  he  means.  Was  it 
from  a  lady  ?  Ask  him. ' ' 

MEDIUM:  "Yes,  he  says  it  is  that  one.  He 
wishes  you  to  burn  it." 

CLIENT:  "Burn  it!  Why,  I  wonder?  It 
was  from  his  sister  Pat,  asking  him  to  do 
something  for  her  in  the  city. ' ' 

MEDIUM:  "Pat!  There,  that's  the  name 
he  has  been  struggling  so  hard  to  say.  I 
knew  it  began  with  a  P,  but  I  could  not  catch 
the  letters  that  followed. 

CLIENT:  How  very  extraordinary!  Tell 
him  I  will  do  as  he  wishes  directly  I  get 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD          161 

home.  Has  he  anything  further  to  say?" 
But  the  spirit  has  gone,  and  the  client,  deeply 
impressed,  takes  her  departure  too,  and  in- 
forms all  her  friends  what  a  very  marvelous 
medium  Madam  So-and-So  is. 

The  photo  stunt  is  another  of  the  regu- 
lar stock-in-hand.  All  mediums,  of  course, 
know  that  during  the  war  soldiers  in  France 
and  at  other  of  the  Fronts  were  frequently 
having  their  photos  taken,  so  that  one  of  the 
safest  possible  messages  to  give  is  one  relat- 
ing to  a  photograph. 

For  example,  medium  to  a  war  widow  who 
has  come  with  express  desire  to  get  into 
touch  with  her  dead  husband:  "I  see  some- 
thing forming  just  behind  you.  (Here 
follows  vague  description  of  khaki  figure  that 
is  at  once  identified  by  desperate  client.)  He 
says  he  has  something  he  very  much  wishes 
you  to  have.  * ' 

CLIENT:  "I  wonder  what  it  can  be!  I 
thought  I  had  everything. ' ' 

MEDIUM :  "It  is  something  he  thinks  would 
please  you — something  he  had  taken  shortly 
before  he  passed  away." 

CLIENT:  "Ah!  I  know  now!  It  is  the 
photograph,  of  course.  Taken  a  week  or  so 


162       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

before  he  was  killed.  I  received  it  quite 
safely  with  the  rest  of  his  things.  Please 
tell  him  so."  And  the  poor  young  widow 
comes  away  fully  convinced  that  the  spirit  of 
her  dead  husband  has  actually  come  to  her, 
and  that  the  medium  is  truly  marvelous. 
She  little  knows  that  precisely  the  same  mes- 
sage has  been  offered  by  that  same  medium 
to  dozens  of  other  war  widows,  though  not 
always,  perhaps,  with  the  same  success,  and 
it  would  undoubtedly  be  hard  to  convince  her 
that  not  one  of  the  messages  delivered  by 
these  clairvoyants  but  could  be  accounted  for 
on  natural  grounds  and  in  the  manner  I  have 
described. 

A  possible  solution  for  the  phenomena  pro- 
fessed to  be  seen  by  mediums,  and  which  no 
doubt  are,  at  times,  seen  by  really  earnest 
Spiritualists,  who  practice  concentration  in 
private,  is  in  projection  and  the  apparent 
materialization  of  thought  forms.  From  my 
own  experience  and  that  of  other  people  I 
have  met,  I  believe  it  is  quite  possible,  by 
intense  concentration  (which  usually  occurs 
when  the  subject  is  asleep  or  is  wholly  un- 
conscious of  what  he  is  doing)  to  bring  about 
a  separation  of  the  material  from  the  imma- 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         163 

terial  body,  and  for  the  latter  to  travel  con- 
siderable distances  and  to  be  seen  or  heard, 
sometimes  both,  either  individually  or  collec- 
tively; but  I  am  certain  this  cannot  be  done 
to  order,  any  more  than  can  the  materializa- 
tion of  any  thought  form;  so  that,  as  far  as 
public  or  private  seances  are  concerned,  I 
think  one  may  rule  out  this  solution  alto- 
gether, and  attribute  anything  the  clients 
profess  to  see,  either  to  pure  hallucination, 
often  largely  aided  by  suggestion  on  the  part 
of  some  one  present,  usually  the  medium  or 
an  accomplice,  or  to  faking,  which,  without 
doubt,  frequently  takes  place.  If  men  such 
as  the  late  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  Edmund  Gurney, 
and  Frank  Podmore,  who  had  won  a  world- 
wide reputation  as  psychical  researchers, 
could  be  hoaxed  in  the  manner  described  by 
Mr.  Douglas  Blackburn  in  a  letter  to  the 
Sunday  Times  of  16th  September,  1917,  how 
much  more  easily  can  those  Spiritualists  and 
others,  who  seek  phenomena  for  the  express 
purpose  of  believing  in  them,  be  deceived. 
No  one,  however  eminent,  is  absolute  proof 
against  trickery.  Robberies  ere  now  have 
actually  taken  place  under  the  noses  of  chief 
con  stables. 


164.       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

Now  with  regard  to  the  aura  medium. 
People  may  have  auras  or  they  may  not ;  the 
matter  is  at  present  purely  speculative.  No 
proof  one  way  or  the  other  has,  or,  as  far  as 
I  can  see,  can  be  afforded.  But  the  moment 
one  person  declared  he  could  see  an  aura, 
and  it  was  ascertained  that  there  was  money 
in  it,  dozens  followed  suit,  until  aura-seers 
are  as  common  now  as  psychometrists  or 
table-tilters.  Of  course  it  is  very  easy  to 
pretend  one  sees  colors.  One  has  only  to 
be  something  of  an  actor,  we  can  then  see  any 
color,  and  no  one  can  disprove  it.  Only,  you 
must  never  see  the  wrong  colors.  If  some 
obviously  coarse,,  vulgar,  ignorant,  flashily 
dressed  woman  comes  to  consult  you  about 
her  aura,  you  must  not  tell  her  what  you  or 
any  other  rational  and  ordinarily  observant 
person  would  think,  you  must  be  both  psychic 
and  subtle;  the  two  terms,  by-the-bye,  would 
seem  to  be  pretty  well  synonymous.  You 
must  half -close  your  eyes,  and,  looking  at  her 
with  a  dreamy,  far-away  expression,  say,  in 
slow  and  very  measured  tones:  "I  see  pale 
blue,  yellow,  and  orange ;  they  are  emanating 
from  all  over  you";  and  when  she  asks  what 
they  signify,  you  must  take  care  to  reply, 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         165 

"Love,  love  in  its  highest  and  most  mysteri- 
ous sense;  and  intellect  (always  tell  a  woman 
she  is  clever,  and  she  will  become  your  client 
for  evermore),  and  wisdom,  not  merely  or- 
dinary wisdom,  but  psychic  wisdom — wisdom 
that  comes  from  the  very  soul  (this  is  sure 
to  score  heavily,  because  women  of  the  type 
I  have  described  are  flattered  beyond  meas- 
ure at  being  thought  to  possess  soul) ;  and 
power — power  to  fascinate,  and  to  command 
attention.  You  might  then  add,  "You  are 
quite  unlike  any  one  else,  you  have  a  strong 
and  arrestiye  personality, "  and  the  thing  is 
done. 

If  you  see  an  aura  like  this  (and  most 
aura-seers  do)  you  are  certain  to  succeed, 
and  will  eventually  become  known  as  one  of 
the  most  famous  psychists  in  existence;  and, 
after  all,  the  harm  you  do — if  you  do  any 
harm  at  all,  beyond  ridding  the  wealthier 
classes  of  a  little  of  their  superfluous  cash 
and  pandering  to  their  eternal  craving  for 
flattery — is  small  in  comparison  to  the  harm 
done  by  the  majority  of  mediums  in  the  other 
lines  I  have  indicated. 

I  was  once  told  how  an  aura-teller  was 
somewhat  neatly  caught.  A  lady  journalist 


166       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

went  to  one,  and  was  so  pleased  with  what 
he  professed  to  see  around  her  that  she 
thought  she  would  go  to  him  again.  Now, 
it  so  happened  that,  just  about  the  time,  she 
was  invited  to  a  fancy  dress  ball  at  Chelsea, 
and,  having  had  her  hair  ;cut  quite  close  to 
her  head,  she  decided  to  go  as  a  boy.  Before 
the  event  took  place,  however,  the  impulse 
seized  her  to  try  the  effect  of  her  costume 
first,  so  she  put  it  on  and  went  to  the  aura- 
seer  in  it.  He  obviously  did  not  recognize 
her,  and,  greatly  to  her  disappointment,  the 
aura  he  now  declared  he  saw  differed  very 
essentially  from  the  one  he  had  de-scribed  on 
the  occasion  of  her  first  visit. 

Trumpet  mediums  are  now  very  much  in 
vogue,  and  from  what  I  have  been  told,  I 
should  say  they  must  be  making  an  extremely 
good  thing  of  it.  Their  fees,  I  believe,  vary 
from  half  a  sovereign  to  a  sovereign,  and 
even  more  if  the  sitting  is  private.  The  same 
sort  of  thing  takes  place  at  their  exhibitions 
as  happens  at  the  table  and  clairvoyant 
seances.  Spirits  come,  whenever  the  me- 
dium so  wills  it,  and  notify  their  presence  by 
talking  or  singing  through  a  species  of 
trumpet.  The  voices  sometimes  sound  very 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         167 

hollow  and  mechanical,  and  sometimes  bear 
a  certain  curious  resemblance  to  the  voices 
of  the  mediums  themselves.  Invariably, 
there  are  people  at  these  seances  who  are 
only  too  ready  to  identify  one  or  other  of  the 
voices  with  the  voice  of  the  dead  relative,  the 
identification  being  very  materially  aided  by 
suggestion,  either  on  the  part  of  the  medium 
or  some  one  else  present.  These  clients  would 
not  be  quite  so  eager  to  claim  acquaintance 
with  the  voices,  perhaps,  if  they  did  but  know 
that,  at  previous  seances  given  by  the  same 
medium,  voices  exactly  like  them  had  been 
claimed  by  countless  other  clients. 

You  ask,  how  are  the  voices  produced! 
Well,  that,  perhaps,  is  not  for  me  to  say. 
However,  I  cannot  believe  they  are  the  voices 
they  pretend  to  be.  Can  any  sane  person 
really  think  the  spirits  of  their  dead  relatives 
would  come  at  the  bidding  of  a  stranger — 
usually  one  who  is  none  too  edifying — in 
order,  with  their  permission,  to  speak  through 
a  trumpet!  If  they  possessed  the  power  to 
return  thus  promiscuously — I  believe  they  do 
possess  the  power  to  return  at  times,  but 
only  on  rare  occasions,  when  they  appear  to 
us  quite  spontaneously — they  would  as- 


168       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

suredly  acquaint  us  of  their  presence  in  a 
rather  more  dignified  manner.  No,  if  the 
voices  proceed  from  spirits  at  all,  they  can 
only  proceed  from  those  of  a  very  mis- 
chievous and  vulgar  class,  that  specialize  in 
imitating  the  voices  of  their  superiors,  and 
in  deceiving  the  poor  anxious  bereaved  ones 
on  this  earth,  who  are  only  too  ready  to  clutch 
at  any  straw  that  will  bring  them  the  com- 
forting conviction  that  those  who  have  passed 
away  are  not  utterly  annihilated.  I  do  not, 
however,  think  the  spirit  explanation  is  at  all 
feasible  in  this  case;  I  think  it  far  more 
probable  that  the  voices  are  either  produced 
by  ventriloquism — and  it  is  a  significant  fact 
that  most  trumpet  mediums  are  of  the  same 
physical  type  and  have  the  same  peculiarities 
with  regard  to  the  development  of  throat  and 
chest  as  professional  ventriloquists — or  else 
they  are  due  to  some  mechanical  contrivance, 
such  as  I  have  no  doubt  any  skilled  conjuror 
could  manipulate.  The  messages  purporting 
to  be  delivered  by  the  spirit  voices  are,  in- 
variably, I  believe,  of  the  same  vague  and 
worthless  nature  as  those  "spirit"  messages 
to  which  I  have  already  alluded. 
I  now  come  to  the  question  of  automatic 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         169 

writing.  Here,  again,  although  I  am  of  the 
opinion  that  messages  from  a  bond  fide  spirit 
world  may  come  at  times,  I  believe  that 
where  such  is  the  case  the  spirits  communi- 
cate quite  spontaneously.  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  attempt  on  our  part  to  attract  spirits 
of  the  dead  for  the  purpose  of  communication 
through  writing,  saving  when  they  are  al- 
ready present,  for  some  such  specific  purpose 
as  haunting,  is  at  all  likely  to  succeed;  al- 
though I  think  that  if  we  sat  long  enough, 
pencil  in  hand,  concentrating  on  some  denizen 
of  the  other  world  coming  to  our  side,  some 
very  undesirable  type  of  spirit — perhaps  of 
the  nature  of  the  demons  in  the  Bible — might 
eventually  accept  our  invitation,  and  that, 
once  having  come,  it  would  be  very  loath  to 
leave  us.  I  am  firmly  persuaded,  also,  that 
this  is  the  only  class  of  spirit  at  all  likely  to 
respond  to  the  invitation  of  professional  au- 
tomatic writers,  who  can  never  point  to  any 
but  the  most  trite  and  worthless  messages 
received,'  and  whose  intellectual  capacities 
and  moral  characters  are  seldom — if  ever — 
of  an  order  in  the  least  degree  likely  to  at- 
tract the  spirits  of  the  really  clever  or  the 
really  good. 


170       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

There  are  very  few  specimens  of  automatic 
writing  that  have  ever  impressed  me  as  being 
in  the  least  degree  remarkable,  or  that  could 
not  be  accounted  for  by  suggestion,  invention, 
auto-hypnotism,  hysteria,  or  some  other  such 
natural  cause.  As  has  been  already  sug- 
gested in  a  previous  chapter  the  human  mind 
is  very  complex,  and  it  seems  to  me  an  ab- 
solute certainty  that  what  is  known  as  the 
subconscious  self  is  responsible  for  much  that 
is  at  present  attributed  to  the  super-physical. 
Then,  again,  is  it  not  more  than  likely  that 
the  temptation  to  make  the  hand  write  some- 
thing, just  to  break  the  awful  monotony  of 
waiting,  would  be  altogether  too  strong  for 
most  people  to  resist — especially  if  money 
were  attached  to  it?  Until  we  exhaust  all 
possibility  of  natural  agency  playing  the 
title-role  in  automatic  writing  seances,  which, 
despite  the  claims  to  the  contrary  made  by 
certain  eminent  Spiritualists,  we  certainly 
have  not  done  as  yet,  I  do  not  think  we  are 
at  all  justified  in  assuming  that  the  so-called 
automatic  writing  has  anything  whatever  to 
do  with  spirits  of  the  dead.  I  am  quite  sure 
I  am  just  as  psychic  as  any  Spiritualist,  and 
I  am  equally  sure  certain  of  my  relatives  who 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD          171 

have  passed  away  are  as  dear  to  me  as  any 
Spiritualists'  relatives  are  dear  to  them,  yet 
I  have  never  received  any  communication 
through  a  professional  medium  from  even 
one  of  those  I  love,  indeed,  from  any  one  of 
the  many  whom  I  know,  who  are  now  in  the 
other  world. 

It  is  true  professional  automatic  writers 
have  given  me  messages  which  they  have  de- 
clared came  from  spirit  friends  of  mine,  but 
since  these  messages  have  always  been  elastic 
enough  to  fit  any  one,  and  identified  only  with 
some  such  name  as  Dick,  or  Jack,  or  Mary,  I 
could  never  see  in  them  any  proof  whatever 
of  spirit  intercourse.  It  is  disappointing 
that  after  all  we  have  been  led  to  expect  from 
the  alleged  wonderful  communications  the 
American  medium,  Mrs.  Piper,  and  various 
other  mediums,  equally  well  known  in  this 
country,  were  supposed  to  be  receiving  from 
the  spirit  of  the  late  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  the  mat- 
ter somehow  seems  to  have  been  allowed  to 
drop.  At  all  events  the  result  was,  as  far  as 
I  am  aware,  never  made  known  in  the  news- 
papers or  any  other  organ  that  the  public 
could  easily  get  at.  That  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
had  a  very  great  respect  for  Mrs.  Piper's 


172       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

powers  is  very  apparent  from  certain  state- 
ments (see  p.  Ill)  in  his  work  "The  Survival 
of  Man."  (Methuen  &  Co.)  "Mrs.  Piper's 
trance  personality, "  he  writes,  "is  un- 
doubtedly aware  of  much  to  which  she  has  no 
kind  of  ordinarily  recognized  clue,  and  of 
which  in  her  ordinary  state  she  knows  noth- 
ing. " 

Despite  this  exalted  view  of  her,  however, 
and  the  trumpeting  both  she  and  others  of 
her  ilk,  engaged  in  the  same  alleged  cor- 
respondence with  the  dead,  get  from  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge,  nothing  seems  to  have  come 
of  it  all,  and  those  outside  the  inner  circle, 
who  are  seeking  information,  are  still  left 
wondering. 

.Now  it  is  hardly  fair,  and  hardly  prob- 
able, I  think,  that  a  matter  of  such  vital 
importance  as  a  definite  proof  of  another  life 
(which  is  what  countless  people  would  give 
everything  they  possess  to  receive)  should 
be  the  monopoly  of  a  select  few.  Yet,  from 
the  hints  given  in  "The  Survival  of  Man," 
and  other  utterances  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  one 
cannot  but  conclude  that  such  a  proof  has 
been  obtained.  At  the  same  time  I  have  pe- 
rused various  accounts  of  the  Piper,  Thomp- 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         173 

son,  Verrall,  and  Holland  so-called  spirit 
communications,  and,  so  far,  looked  for  this 
proof  in  vain. 

The  sort  of  things  that  happens  in  these 
cross-correspondences  is  that  Mrs.  A.  in 
America,  for  example,  and  Mrs.  B.  in  Eng- 
land both  sit  down,  pretty  well  simultane- 
ously, to  write.  Mrs.  A.  begins  a  sentence, 
perhaps,  in  Latin;  Mrs.  B.  ends  it,  and  the 
sentence  is  declared  to  be  a  quotation  that 
was  constantly  used  by  Mr.  C.,  who  is  dead. 
Now  as  both  Mrs.  A.  and  Mrs.  B.  vow  and  de- 
clare they  do  not  know  Latin,  and  are  totally 
unacquainted  with  any  of  the  late  Mr.  C.'s 
pet  phrases,  it  is  concluded  by  the  great  ex- 
perts in  psychical  research  that  the  spirit  of 
Mr.  C.  had  been  communicating  with  both 
these  ladies. 

That  is,  possibly,  the  proof  we  are  seeking, 
but  can  any  sane  person  accept  it?  Ob- 
viously the  integrity  of  the  ladies  concerned 
has  never  been  called  into  question,  because 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  certain  other  of  the 
more  Spiritualistic  members  of  the  S.P.R. 
have  perfect  confidence  in  them.  But  this 
kind  of  proof  will  never  do  for  the  man  of 
common  sense — the  man  in  the  street.  He 


174       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

wants  some  much  more  substantial  guarantee 
as  to  the  integrity  of  mediums  than  the  mere 
opinions  of  a  psychical  life,  before  he  satis- 
fies himself  that  the  knowledge  displayed  in 
their  alleged  cross-correspondences  is  derived 
through  the  agency  of  the  dead.  He  wants 
absolute  proof — proof  without  any  loophole 
whatever,  that  the  mediums  engaged  in  the 
work  were  not  in  collusion,  did  not  derive 
their  knowledge  from  information  obtained 
beforehand,  or  that  what  they  wrote  was  not 
due  to  pure  coincidence,  and  so  far,  in  my 
opinion  at  least,  no  such  proof  has  been  forth- 
coming. If  it  had,  all  the  world  would  be- 
lieve, and  all  the  world  is  very  far  from  doing 
that. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  seems  particularly  anx- 
ious to  convince  his  readers  with  regard  to 
the  psychic  powers  of  Mrs.  Verrall.  In 
"The  Survival  of  Man,"  for  example,  we 
read  (p.  335),  "The  fame  of  Mrs.  Piper  has 
spread  into  all  lands,  and  I  should  think  the 
fame  of  Mrs.  Verrall  also.  In  these  recent 
cases  of  automatism  the  Society  has  been 
singularly  fortunate,  for  in  the  one  we  have 
a  medium  who  has  been  under  strict  super- 
vision and  competent  management  for  the 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         175 

greater  part  of  her  psychical  life  (psychical 
life  indeed!) ;  and  in  the  other  we  have  one 
of  the  sanest  and  acutest  (I  certainly  believe 
in  the  acuteness,  though  it  is  rather  doubt- 
ful if  the  author  of  'Raymond'  is  much  of  a 
judge  on  sanity)  of  our  own  investigators, 
fortunately  endowed  with  some  power  herself 
—some  power  of  acting  as  translator  or  in- 
terpreter between  the  psychic  and  the  phy- 
sical worlds." 

We  are  given  some  idea  of  the  nature  and 
quality  of  Mrs.  Verrall's  power  in  "The 
Survival  of  Man"  (see  pp.  155  and  300). 
It  is  quite  in  keeping  with  the  power  that  is 
responsible  for  the  messages  concerning  the 
whiskies-and-sodas  in  "Raymond,"  and,  in 
my  opinion,  just  about  as  psychic.  The  re- 
marks I  recently  made  in  connection  with  a 
certain  correspondence  are  equally  applicable 
to  the  case  in  hand;  before  Mrs.  Verrall 
credits  herself  with  being  psychic  she  must 
eliminate  all  possibility  of  fluke  and  all  pos- 
sibility of  any  knowledge  displayed  in  her 
alleged  spirit-inspired  writings  being  derived 
by  her  beforehand,  and  retained  in  her  sub- 
conscious mind;  and  until  she  has  done  that 
she  is  not,  in  my  opinion,  at  all  justified  in 


176       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

claiming  that  she  is  in  the  remotest  degree 
psychic.  At  present  we  have  her  word,  I 
take  it,  that  no  such  knowledge  as  that  ex- 
hibited was  previously  acquired  by  her. 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge  is  apparently  content  to 
accept  it ;  I  am  not,  because  the  testimony  of 
one  single  person  is  no  evidence.  That,  I 
was  always  given  to  understand,  was  one  of 
the  maxims  of  the  S.P.R. 

In  reference  to  these  cases  Mrs.  Verrall 
may,  perhaps,  possess  absolute  integrity;  on 
the  other  hand  she  may  not.  Who  can 
judge?  Obviously,  no  one  but  Mrs.  Verrall 
herself.  No  one  else,  and  least  of  all  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge,  who,  in  "Raymond,"  as  well 
as  in  "The  Survival  of  Man,"  shows  that 
where  the  other  sex  are  concerned  -he  is  the 
very  acme  of  credulity.  I  might  add  that 
my  statements  concerning  Mrs.  Verrall  will 
apply  in  an  equal  degree  to  Mrs.  Thompson 
and  Mrs.  Holland,  other  mediums  mentioned 
in  the  above  works,  and  in  whom  also  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  would  appear  to  place  the  very 
greatest  confidence.  With  regard  to  these 
two  works  (i.e.,  "The  Survival  of  Man"  and 
"Raymond"),  their  whole  tone,  in  my 
opinion,  is  one  of  extreme  arbitrariness  and 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         177 

self-importance,   quite  in  keeping  with  the 
character  of  Spiritualists  in  general. 

The  same  spirit  is,  I  think,  displayed  by 
Sir  A.  C.  Doyle,  when  discussing  the  subject 
of  Spiritualism  in  the  Sunday  Times  (see 
correspondence,  1917)  and  The  Nation 
(1919) ;  and  when  one  reflects  that  the  accu- 
sation brought  against  the  Churches  by 
Spiritualists,  more  frequently  than  any  other, 
is  that  they  are  autocratic  and  intolerant,  it 
is  not  very  easy  to  repress  a  smile.  In  my 
opinion  a  desperate  attempt  is  now  being 
made  to  firmly  plant  Spiritualism  on  the  na- 
tion, and  to  thrust  it  in  the  place  of  the  pres- 
ent State  Church.  I  can  quite  well  see  in 
my  mind's  eye  a  new  archbishop  in  the  person 
of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  bishops  in  the  persons  of 
Sir  W.  F.  Barrett,  Sir  A.  C.  Doyle,  and,  per- 
haps, Mr.  J.  A.  Hill,  and  vicars  innumerable 
in  the  persons  of  known  and  unknown  me- 
diums. A  school  or  institute  for  training 
psychics  is  already  in  the  mind,  and  doubt- 
less such  schools  or  institutes  will,  in  time, 
supplant  the  present  theological  colleges. 
This  idea  of  religious  revolution  may  seem 
baseless  and  visionary,  but  I  verily  believe  a 
colossal  effort  on  the  part  of  Spiritualists 


178       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

will  be  made  to  bring  it  about,  and  I  am  quite 
certain,  if  it  is  accomplished,  the  State  Spirit- 
ualistic Church  (if  such  you  could  designate 
it)  would  be  ten  thousand  times  more  dog- 
matic, arrogant,  and  bigoted  than  any  State 
Church  we  have  hitherto  known. 

But  to  revert  again  to  so-called  cross-cor- 
respondences. There  is  another  point  that 
has  to  be  considered  when  dealing  with  them, 
and  that  is  the  question  of  identity.  Suppos- 
ing the  communications  were  actually  due  to 
spirit  agency,  what  proof  have  we  that  that 
agency  is  what  it  professes  to  be?  Surely 
it  would  not  be  difficult  for  a  mischievous, 
clever,  and  cunning  spirit  to  impersonate  the 
spirit  of  F.  W.  H,  Myers,  Edmund  Gurney, 
or  Professor  Hodgson.  Being  behind  the 
scenes,  so  to  speak,  it  would  surely  have  some 
means  of  ascertaining  at  least  one  or  two  of 
the  characteristics  and  idiosyncrasies  of  any 
one  of  those  three  gentlemen  when  they  lived 
on  this  material  plane — and  who  could  de- 
tect the  difference?  No  living  being,  be- 
cause— despite  all  that  has  been  proffered  by 
mediums  as  information  hailing  from  the 
other  world — we  know  absolutely  nothing 
about  spirits — we  cannot  say  of  what  they 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         179 

are  composed,  or  in  any  way  define  or  limit 
their  capabilities.  They  are,  so  far  at  all 
events,  completely  outside  our  ken. 

Moreover,  it  is  but  feasible  to  suppose  that 
some  of  this  cross-correspondence  would  be 
due  to  impersonation,  since  such  trickery 
would  only  coincide  with  the  silly  phenomena 
claimed  by  Spiritualists  as  taking  place  at 
table-tilting  and  trumpet-speaking  seances. 
In  all  probability,  the  spirits  that  derive 
amusement  from  tilting  tables,  banging 
tambourines,  and  putting  sweets  in  people's 
mouths,  are  only  too  ready,  for  the  sake  of 
variety,  to  seize  the  opportunity  of  imperson- 
ating their  superiors. 

Before  passing  on  to  another  branch  of 
mediumistic  display,  let  me  refer  briefly  to 
a  matter  of  no  little  importance,  namely,  the 
training  of  psychics.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  in  speaking  of  Mrs.  Piper  I  quoted  cer- 
tain extracts  from  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  one  of 
which  contained  the  words,  "who  has  been 
under  strict  supervision  and  competent  man- 
agement." This,  of  course,  can  only  mean 
that  Mrs.  Piper  was  undergoing  a  process  of 
so-called  development.  Of  what  that  process 
consists  I  neither  know  nor  can  conceive,  nor 


180       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

can  I  imagine  who  the  competent  trainers 
could  be,  since,  considering  the  fact  that  the 
forces  constituting  the  other  world  are  at 
present  wholly  unknown  to  us,  it  is  quite  in* 
conceivable  that  any  one  should  lay  claim  to 
any  competency  whatever  concerning  them. 
In  order  to  train  a  pupil  you  must  have  some 
knowledge,  at  all  events,  of  the  subject  in 
which  you  intend  training  him.  And  who  is 
there  that  can  claim  to  be  an  authority  on 
such  a  debatable  subject  as  the  psychic 
faculty?  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  cannot,  nor  can 
Sir  W.  F.  Barrett,  nor  Mrs.  Thompson,  nor 
Mrs.  Verrall,  for,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  they 
have  not  given  the  slightest  proof  that  they 
possess  any  power  whatever  to  get  in  touch 
or  to  communicate  with  another  world,  and 
it  is  that  power,  I  take  it,  that  the  so-called 
psychic  faculty  is  supposed  to  represent. 

The  training  of  psychics  then  means  that 
an  attempt  is  being  made  to  develop  the 
psychic  faculty  in  those  who  are  supposed  to 
possess  it,  but  who,  in  all  probability,  do  not 
possess  it,  by  people  who  know  no  more  of 
what  the  super-physical  embraces  than  do 
those  whom  they  are  professing  to  instruct. 
But  what  these  self-styled  professors  of  psy- 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         181 

chism  can  help  to  develop  is  hysteria,  and 
that  they  are  doing  daily.  They  develop 
hysteria  in  some  -of  their  pupils  and  unwit- 
tingly encourage  trickery  in  others,  so  that 
the  work  they  are  doing  is  without  doubt  both 
injurious  and  demoralizing.  One  would  like 
to  know  how  many  of  these  trained  mediums 
have  ended  in  becoming  hopeless  degenerates 
or  confirmed  tricksters.  The  records  of 
mediumship  will  reveal  much. 

I  now  come  to  the  question  of  psychometry. 
This,  in  my  opinion,  is  almost  invariably  done 
either  by  pure  trickery  or  else  by  mere  in- 
ference from  the  client's  personal  appear- 
ance. At  meetings  where  a  number  of 
articles  are  collected  and  put  into  a  box,  the 
box  is  quickly  changed  by  an  accomplice  and 
an  empty  one  substituted  in  its  place.  This 
can  easily  be  done  under  cover  of  conversa- 
tion— the  psychometrists  are  generally  wind- 
bags— or  some  sudden  little  noise  or  disturb- 
ance, just  sufficient  to  divert  the  audience's 
attention  from  the  box.  An  accomplice  then 
communicates  to  the  medium,  generally  by  a 
code  of  signals  made  with  the  face,  hands, 
feet,  or  tappings  under  the  floor,  or,  if  the 
medium  wears  a  mask,  by  a  telephone,  the 


182       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

wire  of  which  can  be  very  easily  and  effect- 
ually hidden  from  the  audience,  a  description 
of  the  articles  and  any  initials  or  other  mari, 
on  them.  The  medium  at  once  makes  use  01 
this  information  in  the  manner,  practice  has 
taught  her,  will  most  impress  the  audience. 
On  these  occasions  anything,  however  slightly 
true,  is  sure  to  be  proclaimed  wonderful ;  the 
audience  have  come  there  wanting  to  believe, 
and  are  more  than  half  convinced  before  the 
performance  begins. 

There  is  nothing  that  a  professional  psy- 
chometrist  does,  either  at  a  public  or  a  pri- 
vate sitting,  that  could  not  be  done  by  any 
fairly  competent  professional  conjuror,  and 
probably  done  better.  All  that  the  psychom- 
etrist  requires  who  sees  her  clients  pri- 
vately (ostensibly  on  the  grounds  that  one 
seldom  gets  the  right  psychic  conditions  in 
public  places),  and  thereby  avoids  all  danger 
of  such  exposure,  as  once  overtook  the  slate 
medium,  Dr.  "Slade,"  is  a  shrewd  knowledge 
of  human  nature,  some  power  to  draw  infer- 
ences from  physiognomy,  an  ability  to  play 
the  part  of  detective  and  acquire  information 
by  prying  into  and  ferreting  out  family 
secrets,  and  an  unlimited  amount  of  assur- 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         183 

ance  (the  two  last-named  requisites  coming 
readily  and  naturally  to  many  women).  The 
rest  is  merely  a  matter  of  practice.  Hun- 
dreds are  at  it,  and  there  will  be  hundreds 
more,  so  long  as  society  women  continue  to 
hunt  around  for  novelty  and  sensation  and 
their  husbands  are  silly  enough  to  allow  them 
money  to  spend  on  such  tomfoolery.  If 
there  were  no  money  in  psychometry,  there 
would  be  no  psychometrists.  It  is  astonish- 
ing to  find  how  much  the  so-called  psy- 
chic faculty  is  regulated  by  the  money 
market.  Before  the  war,  when  Society 
spent  most  of  its  money  abroad,  Lon- 
don had  comparatively  few  professional  me- 
diums; but  as  soon  as  the  war  came,  and 
mothers  and  widows  were  ready  to  pay  any- 
thing to  get  in  touch  with  their  relatives, 
hundreds  of  people  suddenly  found  out  that 
they  were  psychics,  and  immediately  styled 
themselves  "  professional  clairvoyants, " 
"psychometrists,"  or  "trance  mediums"; 
black  magic,  too,  sprang  up,  and  may  now 
be  said  to  have  a  by  no  means  small  clientele. 
At  a  fantastical  exhibition  of  "black  magic" 
in  Chelsea,  to  which  I  had  gone  with  a  party 
of  friends,  after  being  led  to  expect  that  the 


room  would  suddenly  fill  with  all  kinds  of 
ethereal  demons,  the  only  thing  any  of  us 
saw,  in  the  least  degree  like  our  preconceived 
notion  of  a  devil,  was  the  magician  himself. 
At  the  same  time  I  think  it  quite  possible  that 
if  one  continually  invites  the  intercourse  of 
hellish  spirits,  offering  them,  so  to  say,  a  free 
passage  and  free  field,  one  might  succeed  in 
getting  in  touch  with  them,  and  that — with- 
out the  aid  of  any  of  those  particular  mystical 
words  and  symbols  experimenters  in  the  black 
art  tell  me  are  indispensable. 

I  do  not  propose  to  deal  here  with  the  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  black  magic  now  in  vogue— 
they  are  all  the  result  of  this  present  mad 
craze  for  Spiritualism — but,  I  might  say  that 
from  what  I  can  gather,  hypnotism  and  sug- 
gestion, as  in  Spiritualism,  probably  play  an 
important  role  in  most  of  them,  whilst  in  a 
few  there  is  unquestionably  something  very 
filthy  and  disgusting.  Of  course  many  of  the 
mediums  who  profess  to  be  exponents  of 
black  magic  are  pure  fakers,  and,  perhaps, 
beyond  mere  trickery  would  stoop  to  nothing 
worse,  but  there  are  some,  I  am  convinced, 
who  make  so-called  initiation  an  excuse  for 
the  perpetration  of  acts  only  likely  to  attract 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD          185 

the  very  lowest  and  foulest  type  of  spirit; 
and  I  would  most  solemnly  warn  all  those,  at 
least,  who  have  no  desire  to  lose  money  and 
self-respect  too,  to  shun  this  subject  and  give 
it  the  very  widest  berth  possible. 

Spiritualism  (excluding  black  magic,  of 
course)  numbers  among  its  advocates 
scientists  like  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  Sir  W.  F. 
Barrett,  Sir  William  Crookes,  Professors 
Janet,  Bernheim,  Lombroso,  Flammarion, 
and  others.  Equally  clever  and  prominent 
men,  however,  are  opposed  to  it,  and  I  now 
intend  quoting  a  few  extracts  from  the  writ- 
ings and  letters  of  the  latter.  First  of  all, 
I  will  refer  to  Sir  Ray  Lankester,  K.C.B., 
F.R.S.,  whose  writings  are  singularly  free 
from  any  of  that  egotism  and  bumptious 
fanaticism  that  is  so  characteristic  of  the 
writings  of  Spiritualists,  such  as  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  Sir  A.  C.  Doyle,  and  others. 

In  the  January  number  of  Bedrock  (1913), 
Sir  Ray  Lankester  writes,  apropos  of  Sir 
Oliver  and  telepathy,  "Sir  Oliver  Lodge, 
when  president  of  the  Psychical  Research 
Society,  some  years  ago,  actually  went  so 
far  as  to  assert  that  the  society  had  achieved 
a  great  result;  it  had,  he  said,  'discovered' 


186       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

telepathy.  We  all  know  what  the  word  *  dis- 
covery' means  in  the  statement  of  a  profes- 
sional man  of  science.  It  means  not  that  a 
guess  or  fancy  has  been  put  forward,  but  that 
the  thing  said  to  be  'discovered'  has  been 
demonstrated  to  exist  by  evidence  which 
bears  the  test  of  strict  examination  as  to  its 
truth — evidence  which  can  be  produced  and 
subjected  again  and  again  to  searching  criti- 
cism." Just  such  a  test  as  I  have  suggested 
should  be  applied  by  the  outside  public  to 
Mrs.  Verrall  and  other  of  the  mediums  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  and  his  confreres  have  so  per- 
sistently bolstered  up.  "At  the  time  I  chal- 
lenged," (in  a  letter  to  the  Press)  Sir  Kay 
Lankester  continues,  "Sir  Oliver  Lodge's 
statement  that  telepathy  had  been  *  dis- 
covered,' I  asked  for  the  demonstration  nec- 
essary to  justify  the  assertion  that  telepathy 
had  been  'discovered.'  I  professed  my  will- 
ingness to  investigate  this  phenomenon  stated 
to  occur  in  our  midst  and  its  asserted  dis- 
covery. No  opportunity  of  investigating  it 
has  ever  been  offered  to  me  by  those  who  de- 
clare that  it  exists.  I  was  definitely  refused 
the  opportunity  of  examining  the  asserted 
phenomenon  for  which  I  applied  to  the  So- 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         187 

ciety  for  Psychical  Research.  No  evidence 
establishing  experimentally  the  existence  of 
'telepathy'  has  been  published  by  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  or  by  his  associates. "  And  so  it  is 
with  regard  to  the  wonderful  proofs  alleged 
to  have  been  obtained  through  cross-cor- 
respondence and  at  the  table.  There  has 
been  a  marvelous  lot  of  trumpeting  by  the 
same  gentleman  and  his  associates,  but  when 
a  proof  has  been  demanded  for  the  general 
public,  it  has  been  ominously  withheld. 

Now  let  us  hear  what  the  same  author— 
a  scientist  every  whit  as  eminent  in  his  own 
line  as  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  is  in  his — has  to  say 
with  regard  to  spirit  presences  at  seances. 
In  the  new  and  revised  edition  of  "The 
Kingdom  of  Man"  (Watts  &  Co.,  London, 
1912),  we  read  (p.  36),  "Modern  biologists 
(I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  affirm)  do  not  accept 
the  hypothesis  of  'telepathy'  advocated  by 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  nor  that  of  the  intrusions 
of  disembodied  spirits  pressed  upon  them 
by  others  of  the  same  school.  We  biolo- 
gists take  no  stock  in  these  mysterious  en- 
tities." 

Next,  let  us  refer  to  an  article  by  Ivor 
Tuckett,  M.A.,  M.D.,  entitled  "The  Illogical 


188       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

Position  of  Some  Psychical  Researchers," 
also  in  the  January,  1913,  number  of  Bedrock. 
In  a  passage  relating  to  Mrs.  Verrall  and 
Mrs.  Piper,  Dr.  Ivor  Tuckett  writes,  "Then 
again,  it  is  sometimes  triumphantly  asked, 
how  do  you  explain  certain  cases  of  cross- 
correspondence  or  the  best  of  Mrs.  Piper's 
trance  utterances  and  writings  ?  The  answer 
to  this  is  that  on  the  data  supplied  a  normal 
explanation  may  not  be  possible,  but  that  the 
first  point  to  decide  is  whether  the  witnesses 
and  reporters  of  the  case  can  be  regarded  as 
competent;  and  that  if  in  their  other  writ- 
ings they  have  not  shown  a  high  standard  of 
evidence,  or  if  the  will  to  believe  is  at  all 
noticeable,  then,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
observations  cannot  be  repeated,  an  agnostic 
attitude  is  essentially  scientific."  The  wit- 
nesses and  reporters  of  the  phenomena  are, 
invariably,  pronounced  Spiritualists  of  the 
order  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  Mr.  J.  A.  Hill ; 
but  the  mere  fact  that  the  writing  might  be 
at  one  time  compatible  with  the  truth  and  at 
another  time  not,  renders  it  worthless,  and, 
consequently  (no  matter  whether  it  be  spirits 
who  lie  or  the  mediums,  the  result  is  the 
same),  since  we  are  never  sure  that  we  can 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         189 

depend  on  it,  we  cannot  regard  it  as  of  any 
practical  use  whatever. 

Eeferring  to  Mrs.  Verrall,  Dr.  Tuckett  ob- 
serves, "On  a  series  of  automatic  writings, 
where  she  records  the  results  of  three  hun- 
dred and  twenty-two  experiments  on  herself, 
and  where  telepathic  experiments,  with  the 
avowed  object  of  determining  whether  in- 
formation unknown  to  the  writer  could  be 
conveyed  by  automatic  writing,  were  practi- 
cally unsuccessful.  Indeed,  these  experi- 
ments very  strongly  suggest,  if  they  do  not 
establish,  the  fact  that  automatic  writing  is 
concerned  with  the  reproduction  of  past  ex- 
periences or  of  fabrications  founded  on  these 
experiences.  The  conclusion,  then,  of  this 
rejoinder  is  that  no  phenomena  requiring  a 
supernormal  explanation,  have  yet  been  re- 
corded under  conditions  sufficiently  free  from 
the  possibility  of  error  as  to  satisfy  a  scien- 
tific standard  of  research. "  Which  is  pre- 
cisely what  I  have  said. 

Again,  with  regard  to  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 
and  other  of  his  Spiritualistic  associates  of 
the  S.P.R.,  Dr.  Tuckett  remarks,  "When  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  ends  his  article  with  the  as- 
sertion that  the  S.P.R.  was  founded  in  ex- 


190       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

plicit  accord  with  Huxley's  dictum  about  the 
importance  of  'the  resolution  to  take  noth- 
ing for  truth  without  clear  knowledge  that  it 
is  such,'  he  forgets  to  state  that  from  the 
start  some  of  its  most  prominent  members 
have  taken  the  hypotheses  of  'psychic  force,' 
'telepathy,'  and  'Spiritistic  interference'  for 
truth  without  any  clear  knowledge  they  are 
such."  This  substantiates  my  assertion  that 
one  can  really  place  very  little  reliance  on  the 
testimony  of  men  who,  like  Sir  Oliver  Lodge, 
enter  the  arena  of  Psychical  Research  en- 
tirely biased  in  favor  of  believing,  who  are, 
in  fact,  out  to  believe,  in  spite  of  any  and 
every  obstacle. 

Dr.  Tuckett  soon  dismisses  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge 's  shadow,  Mr.  J.  A.  Hill.  After  refer- 
ring to  certain  passages  (p.  80)  in  Mr.  Hill's 
work,  "New  Evidences  in  Psychical  Re- 
search" (a  work  which  bears  the  hall-mark 
of  Spiritualism,  namely,  a  super-abundance 
of  high-falutin  expressions  and  would-be 
scientific  terms),  Dr.  Tuckett  proceeds:  "In 
fact  the  evidence  which  has  driven  him  (Mr. 
Hill)  to  believe  in  psychometry  consists  of 
the  uncritical  stories  of  a  few  friends  and  of 
his  own  unverified  experience  on  one  or  per- 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         191 

haps  two  occasions."  And,  again,  "Mr. 
Hill,  as  revealed  in  his  writings,  is  really 
rather  an  interesting  psychological  study 
because  he  clearly  recognizes  the  need  of 
'careful  observation  and  experiment,  scru- 
pulously accurate  recording,  and  cautious  in- 
ferring' ('New  Evidences  in  Psychical  Re- 
search,' p.  212.  Rider,  London,  1911),  and 
at  the  same  time  shows  that  he  has  had  no 
practical  training  in  exercising  these  quali- 
ties,"— remarks  that  might  surely  be  applied 
to  all  who  attempt  to  bolster  up  Spiritualism 
and  mediums. 

I  will  now  turn  to  an  article  entitled 
"Science  and  Spiritualism,"  by  Sir  Bryan 
Donkin,  M.D.,  F.R.C.P.,  also  in  the  January, 
1913,  number  of  Bedrock.  In  it  we  read, 
"The  present  writer  has  had  considerable  ex- 
perience in  the  past  of  spiritualistic  seances 
of  many  kinds,  both  public  and  private  (in 
a  footnote  it  is  stated  that  he  attended 
seances  held  by  Corner  (nee  F.  Cook),  Annie 
Eva  Fay,  Williams,  Hearne,  Hush,  and 
Eglington — all  well-known  mediums  of  their 
time),  including  manifestations  of  'thought 
transference,'  and  also  of  what  is  now  called 
'automatic  writing'  with  and  without  the  aid 


192       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

of  the  ingenious  instrument  known  as  plan- 
chette;  and  he  has  found,  as  many  others 
have  found  (myself  amongst  the  number) 
that  difficulty  or  impossibility  of  applying 
crucial  tests  of  the  occurrence  of  phenomena 
as  alleged  has  always  coincided  with  the 
existence  of  certain  preliminary  conditions 
postulated  as  necessary  for  the  manifesta- 
tions." The  pretext  of  mediums  that  it  is 
very  harmful  and  injurious  to  spirits  to  be 
touched,  or  experimented  upon  in  any  way 
during  the  so-called  materialization,  is,  of 
course,  all  buncombe.  Spirits  that  manifest 
themselves  spontaneously  in  haunted  houses 
experience  no  harm  when  chairs  are  thrown 
at  them,  so  why  should  those  at  seances.  The 
conclusion  is  obvious. 

But  to  continue  the  quotation  from  Sir 
Bryan's  article:  "Without  further  illustrat- 
ing here  from  his  own  experience  this  quasi- 
pathological  study  of  'Psychics'  and  their 
prophets  and  disciples,  or  quoting  the  numer- 
ous cases  where  appropriate  tests  were  ap- 
plied and  the  manifestations  declined  or  dis- 
appeared as  the  crucial  test  was  approached 
or  attained;  or  where  the  results  either 
demonstrated  or  directly  indicated  a  well- 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         193 

known  agency  in  the  production  of  the  phe- 
nomena; or  where  mistaken  observations,  or 
illusions,  or  statements  and  actions  which 
were  confessedly  fraudulent,  were  revealed; 
he  maintains,  on  the  grounds  set  forth  above, 
that  science  is  more  than  fully  justified  in 
leaving  the  jewels  of  Psychical  Research  to 
be  plowed  by  those  who  please."  This  is 
a  pretty  sure  guide  to  what  Sir  Bryan  really 
thinks  on  this  subject. 

Further  on  he  says,  "The  more  frequently 
instances  of  some  classes  of  'occult'  phenom- 
ena have  been  confessedly^  proved  to  be  due 
to  misconception  or  to  manifest  trickery" — 
(this  referring  to  the  movements  of  pieces  of 
furniture,  materialization  and  tangibility  of 
spirit-forms) — "the  more  such  classes  are 
neglected  or  ignored,  essential  though  they 
were  to  the  Spiritualistic  propaganda  of  the 
not  far  distant  past"-— (many  Spiritualists 
still  believe  in  them) — "and  the  more  stress 
is  laid  on  other  kinds  of  alleged  phenomena" 
—(automatic  writing,  for  instance) — "that 
have  been  less  often  actually  and  severally 
demonstrated  to  be  due  to  similar  origins." 

Sir  Bryan  goes  on  to  add  that  it  is  often 
announced  from  the  pulpit  (I  suppose  he 


MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

means  the  Spiritualistic  pulpit)  and  plat- 
form that  "the  materialistic  science"  of  the 
last  century  has  given  way  to  the  scientific 
philosophy  of  such  present-day  teachers  as 
Professor  Bergson,  and  that  the  prophets  of 
Psychical  Research  are  now  clamoring  to  be 
recognized  as  "scientific"  students  of  the 
"super-normal."  "But,"  Sir  Bryan  re- 
marks, "those  who  recognize  no  scientific 
revolution,  nor  any  victory  over  the  accepted 
methods  of  scientific  research  by  any  philoso- 
phies whatever,  regard  all  such  attempts  at 
reconciliation  as  mere  logomachy,  and  say  of 
such  as,  in  the  name  of  Science,  would  abro- 
gate scientific  method,  'they  make  a  Desert, 
and  call  it  Peace.'  "  Spiritualists  would  do 
well  to  ponder  over  this  when  boasting  their 
cause  is  advocated  by  the  scientific  world. 

Lastly,  Sir  Bryan  issues  a  warning  which, 
I  think,  should  have  special  significance  for 
all  those  dabbling  in  Spiritualism.  "Much," 
he  says,  "might  be  said  of  the  multiform 
harm  resulting  from  the  advocacy  of  'Psy- 
chical Research'  (in  its  current  and  peculiar 
sense).  But,  in  order  to  avoid  any  possible 
confusion  of  the  issue,  the  writer  has  pur- 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         195 

posely  omitted  all  reference  to  this  from  his 
argument. ' ' 

I  now  come  to  a  work  by  Lionel  A. 
Weatherly,  M.D.,  and  J.  N.  Maskelyne.  It  is 
called  "The  Supernatural"  (published  by 
J.  W.  Arrowsmith,  Bristol).  On  the  title 
page  confronting  a  dedication  to  Daniel  Hack 
Tuke,  M.D.,  we  find  these  very  appropriate 
lines  by  Dr.  Maudsley:  "If  all  visions,  in- 
tuitions, and  other  modes  of  communication 
with  the  supernatural,  accredited  now  or  at 
any  time,  have  been  no  more  than  phenomena 
of  psychology — instances,  that  is,  of  sub-nor- 
mal, supra-normal,  or  abnormal  mental  func- 
tion— and  if  all  existing  supernatural  beliefs 
are  survivals  of  a  state  of  thought  befitting 
lower  stages  of  human  development,  the  con- 
tinuance of  such  beliefs  cannot  be  helpful,  it 
must  be  hurtful  to  human  progress." 

In  this  work  the  mediumistic  side  of 
Spiritualism  is  summed  up  very  neatly  by 
Mr.  J.  N.  Maskelyne.  "The  doctrine  of  so- 
called  Spiritualism/'  he  says  (see  p.  183), 
"embodies  an  abstract  principle  and  a  con- 
crete fact — the  principle  being  'that  those 
who  have  plenty  of  money  and  no  brains  were 


196       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

made  for  those  who  have  plenty  of  brains 
and  no  money';  and  the  fact  is  that  the  ranks 
of  the  Spiritualists  have  ever  been  largely 
recruited  from  these  two  classes." 

Referring  to  the  notorious  American 
mediums,  the  Fox  sisters,  the  same  author 
remarks  (p.  187):  ''Speaking  of  the  Fox 
girls,  the  Professors  of  the  Medical  College, 
Buffalo,  said  that  these  loosely  constructed 
girls  got  their  raps  by  snapping  their  toe 
and  knee  joints."  On  the  same  page,  again, 
is  the  following  quotation,  which  refers  to 
the  confession  made  by  Mrs.  Norman  Culver, 
a  relation  of  the  Fox  family:  "...  but 
something  I  (Mrs.  Culver)  saw  when  I  was 
visiting  the  girls  at  Eochester  made  me  sus- 
pect they  were  deceiving.  I  resolved  to 
satisfy  myself  in  some  way,  and  some  time 
afterwards  I  made  a- proposition  to  Catherine 
to  assist  her  in  producing  the  manifestations. 
.  .  .  After  I  had  helped  her  in  this  way  for 
some  time,  she  revealed  to  me  the  secrets. 
The  raps  are  produced  by  the  toes.  All  the 
toes  are  used.  After  a  week's  practice  with 
Catherine  showing  me  how,  I  could  produce 
them  perfectly  myself."  And  no  doubt  this 
is  how  many  of  the  rappings  are  done  by 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         197 

mediums  at  table-turning  seances  to-day.  It 
is  significant  to  note  that  all  New  York  State 
went  mad  over  these  supposed  great  psychics, 
just  as  London  is  going  mad  over  other 
supposed  great  psychics  at  the  present 
moment. 

In  connection  with  the  famous  medium, 
Daniel  Douglas  Hume,  who,  to  quote  Mr. 
Maskelyne's  words  (p.  189),  "wound  his  way 
into  the  best  society,  always  despising  filthy 
lucre,  but  never  refusing  a  diamond  worth 
ten  times  the  amount  he  would  have  received 
in  cash,"  we  are  told  he  got  involved  in  a 
law-suit  by  pretending  to  get  such  messages 
from  the  spirit  of  a  dead  man,  as  induced  the 
latter 's  widow  to  give  him  thirty  thousand 
pounds.  The  suit  went  against  him — as  even 
his  confreres  were  forced  to  admit,  very 
justly — and,  like  a  good  many  mediums  have 
done  since,  he  fizzled  out. 

With  regard  to  Miss  Annie  Eva  Fay,  an- 
other American  medium  who  duped  thou- 
sands of  people  in  this  country,  Mr.  Maske- 
lyne  writes,  "Her  seance  was  the  most  trans- 
parent trickery  all  through ;  so  simple,  indeed, 
that  in  a  few  days  I  taught  my  colleague  the 
whole  of  her  tricks,  and  he  performed  them 


198       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

at  the  Egyptian  Hall,  whilst  Miss  Fay  was 
holding  seances  at  the  Hanover  Square 
Eooms.  The  result  of  this  was  that  Miss 
Fay  made  a  very  short  stay  in  London." 

Apropos  of  Dr.  Slade,  the  slate-writing 
medium,  Mr.  Maskelyne  remarks,  "How- 
ever, from  the  reports  of  my  deputies  and 
others,  the  secrets  were  in  my  possession 
within  a  few  weeks,  and  I  was  planning  a 
grand  exposure,  when  Professor  Lancaster 
and  the  late  Dr.  Donkin  caught  the  gentle- 
man red-handed,  and  prosecuted  him  and  his 
manager. ' ' 

Mr.  Maskelyne  deals  with  so-called 
materializations,,  table-turning,  thought- 
reading,  and  spirit  photography  in  the  same 
work,  and  what  he  thinks  of  them  all  he 
suggests  in  a  nutshell,  when  referring  (see 
p.  205)  to  the  report  of  a  certain  commission 
of  inquiry  into  these  several  branches  of 
professional  mediumship.  "Of  genuine 
manifestations,"  he  writes,  "they  found  ab- 
solutely none — not  one  single  indication  of 
anything  that  could  not  be  accounted  for  by 
the  most  puerile  trickery";  and  with  these 
observations  we  will  leave  him.  I  can  only 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         199 

add  that  the  work  of  which  he  and  Dr. 
Weatherly  are  the  joint  authors  should  be 
read  by  all  persons  who  are  contemplating  at- 
tending a  seance. 

Other  works  that  I  would  strongly  recom- 
mend these  same  people  should  read  (in  addi- 
tion to  most  of  those  from  which  I  have  al- 
ready quoted)  are  Dr.  Charles  Mercier's 
"Spiritualism  and  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,"  and 
Mr.  J.  Godfrey  Raupert's  "The  Dangers  of 
Spiritualism"  (Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  Triib- 
ner&Co.,  1906). 

In  the  latter  work  (p.  143)  we  find  the  fol- 
lowing: "The  exercise  of  mediumship  is  al- 
most always  attended  by  physical  exhaustion, 
very  frequently  by  complete  mental  prostra- 
tion, producing  a  kind  of  moral  paralysis  and 
inertia  of  the  will.  Sometimes  there  are 
cataleptic  seizures,  contortions  of  the 
muscles  of  the  face  which  are  terrible  to  wit- 
ness, and  which  are,  all  of  them,  conditions 
awakening  disgust  in  all  healthy  and  nor- 
mally constituted  minds."  And  again  (see  p. 
145),  "Whatever  the  scientific  explanation  of 
these  physical  accompaniments  may  be,  is 
it  likely,  considering  the  debasing  effect  they 


200       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

have  on  most  minds,  that  Providence  would 
employ  such  ignoble  and  unworthy  means 
with  a  view  to  the  higher  moral  advancement 
of  mankind?" 

Regarding  the  question  of  identity,  Mr. 
Raupert  apparently  shares  my  views.  He 
says  (p.  115),  "The  absolute  futility  of  any 
attempt  at  identifying  spirits  is  another  dis- 
couraging or  unsatisfactory  circumstance. 
It  is  no  proof  that  the  spirit  communicating 
is  A.  B.  if  he  tells  me  of  words  or  circum- 
stances (supposed  to  be)  known  only  to  A.  B. 
and  myself.  Who  knows  how  many  spirits 
are  more  or  less  eavesdropping  in  every  time 
and  place ! ' ' 

A  somewhat  unusual  view  of  the  subject 
was  taken  by  the  late  George  Macdonald. 
In  his  work,  "The  Miracles  of  Our  Lord," 
he  says,  for  instance  (p.  160),  "There  seems 
to  me  nothing  unreasonable  in  the  supposi- 
tion of  the  existence  of  spirits  who,  having 
once  had  such  bodies  as  ours,  and  having 
abused  the  privileges  of  embodiment,  are 
condemned  for  a  season  to  roam  about  bodi- 
less, ever  mourning  the  loss  of  their  capacity 
for  the  only  pleasure  they  care  for,  and  crav- 
ing after  them  in  their  imagination.  Such, 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         201 

either  in  selfish  hate  of  those  who  have  what 
they  have  lost,  or  from  eagerness  to  come 
as  near  the  possession  of  a  corporeal  form  as 
they  may,  might  well  seek  to' '  enter  into  a 
man.'  " 

Another  author  from  whom  I  will  quote 
briefly  is  Mr.  Edward  Clodd,  and  the  fol- 
lowing extracts  from  his  letter  to  the  Sunday 
Times  (7th  October,  1917)  will,  I  think,  very 
well  serve  to  indicate  his  attitude  towards 
Spiritualism  and  some  of  those  who  practice 
it. 

'  *  The  corrective  to  any  tendency  to  believe 
in  the  delusion,"  he  writes,  "is  supplied  by 
a  study  of  animistic  ideas,  such  as  is  given  in 
Tylor's  'Primitive  Culture.'  Therein  is 
clearly  set  forth  the  origin  and  growth  of 
early  man's  conception  of  a  soul  and  a  fu- 
ture life,  upon  which  no  further  light  has 
been  thrown  by  this  pretentious  Spiritualism. 
It  is  only  the  old  animism  writ  large."  And 
again,  "Instead  of  'about  it  and  about,'  with 
which  Spiritualists  are  filling  your  columns, 
why  do  they  not  urge  their  leaders  to  bring 
the  phenomena  before  the  Court  of  Science, 
where  mere  personal  authority  has  no  value, 
and  where,  on  the  principle  of  setting  a  con- 


202       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

jurer  to  catch  a  conjurer,  Mr.  Devant  should 
be  subprenaed. ' ' 

Mr.  F.  H.  Hayward  (D.Lit,  B.S.,  Lon- 
don) also  has  something  interesting  to  say  in 
this  controversy  on  Spiritualism  going  on  in 
the  Sunday  Times,  and  the  following  extract 
is  from  his  letter  to  that  paper,  published  on 
14th  October,  1917 : 

"What  exactly,"  he  asks,  "has  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge  discovered?  What  revelations  have 
come  to  him  through  the  mediums,  untrust- 
worthy or  otherwise,  whom  he  has  consulted? 
Is  the  whole  mass  of  such  revelations,  even 
if  true,  worth  a  schoolboy's  consideration?'* 
And  further  on:  "Your  readers  will  note  the 
evidence  of  a  future  life  would  not  be  neces- 
sary for  people  who  believed  in  the  Resur- 
rection of  Jesus.  Like  most  scientists,  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge  and  Sir  A.  C.  Doyle  evidently 
do  not  believe — or  did  not  believe — in  that, 
otherwise  they  would  not  have  gone  fishing 
for  other  proofs." 

And,  lastly,  I  refer  to  some  remarks  by 
Mr.  Nevil  Maskelyne,  also  made  in  the  Sun- 
day Times,  but  'in  a  letter  published  on  28th 
October,  1917.  Eeferring  to  the  question  of 
investigating  supposed  spiritual  phenomena, 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD         203 

Mr.  N.  Maskelyne  observes,  ".  .  .  the  only 
people  who  are  really  competent  to  undertake 
an  investigation  are,  necessarily,  those  who 
have  a  knowledge  of,  at  least,  the  modern 
magic.  Professed  scientists,  as  a  rule,  have 
no  such  knowledge.  I  very  much  doubt  if 
Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  for  example,  even  knows 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  theory  of  magic. " 
And  he  adds,  "During  the  past  thirty  years 
I  have,  from  time  to  time,  been  associated 
with  my  father,  the  late  J.  N.  Maskelyne,  in 
investigations  concerning  alleged  Spiritual- 
istic phenomena.  And  in  all  those  years  I 
have  never  discovered  anything  that  even 
tends  to  lend  color  to  the  Spiritualistic 
hypothesis." 

From  these  extracts  and  quotations  I  trust 
it  may  be  gathered  (since  they  have  been 
given  partly  to  show)  that  despite  the  puff- 
ing up  that  Spiritualism — particularly  the 
mediumistic  side  of  Spiritualism — is  receiv- 
ing at  the  hands  of  a  clique  of  well-known 
scientists  and  authors,  there  is  still  a  strong 
consensus  of  opinion,  equally  expert,  against 
it.  I  hope  I  have  made  it  quite  clear,  for 
example,  that  the  orthodox  Churches  are 
unanimous  in  condemning  Spiritualism  on 


204       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

the  grounds  that  it  is  dangerous  to  faith  and 
morality  alike;  that  the  medical  profession, 
with  little  exception,  oppose  it  on  the  grounds 
that  it  is  thoroughly  injurious  to  health; 
whilst  many  of  the  most  eminent  scientists— 
by  far  the  greater  number,  in  fact — regard  it 
as  a  sham,  maintaining  that  its  phenomena 
are  wholly  explainable  by  natural  causes, 
and,  more  often  than  not,  by  trickery.  To 
the  ordinary  average  man  who  is  neither 
very  religious  nor  very  eminent,  but  who  has 
plenty  of  common  sense,  Spiritualism  can 
only  appear  as  a  hotch-potch  of  imbecility, 
gullibility,  and  roguery — a  hotch-potch  that 
has  been  of  benefit  to  no  one,  saving  those 
that  have  filled  their  pockets  out  of  it.  To 
me  one  of  the  worst  results  of  this  popular 
side  of  Spiritualism  is  that  it  has  led — and 
still  is  leading — to  such  bitter  deception  and 
disappointment.  Of  the  legions  of  widows 
and  other  bereaved  ones  who  have  been  in- 
duced to  visit  mediums  through  seeing  them 
advertised  in  books,  magazines,  and  news- 
papers, none,  perhaps,  have  been  wholly 
satisfied,  and  the  majority  have  come  away 
with  the  ache  in  their  heart  increased 
rather  than  diminished. 


THE  DANGER  OF  FRAUD          205 

It  may  possibly  be  said  -of  me  that  all  this 
is  inconsistent  with  the  views  I  have  hitherto 
expressed  in  my  writings.  Let  me  observe 
that  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  It  is  true  that 
I  have  stated  my  implicit  belief  in  what  are 
termed  ghosts;  and  in  ghosts — in  haunted 
houses,  and  at  the  time  of,  or  immediately 
subsequent  to,  death — I  have  always  believed 
and  still  most  emphatically  do  believe;  but 
these  ghosts,  I  would  remind  you,  are  of  a 
different  nature  from  the  type  of  thing  we 
are  taught  to  associate  with  the  spirit  world 
at  seances.  It  is  with  regard  to  the  latter — 
the  latter  only — that  I  am  very,  very  skepti- 
cal, and  I  repeat  once  again  that  I  do  not 
think  it  at  all  probable  that  any  of  the  psy- 
chics of  to-day  possess  the  power  of  evoking 
or  getting  in  touch  at  will  with  spirits  of  the 
dead;  though  I  think  it  just  possible  that 
they  may  on  rare  occasions  and  quite  by 
chance  succeed  in  attracting  spirits  of  an- 
other kind. 

The  so-called  manifestations  we  see  and 
hear  at  seances  command  neither  awe  nor 
respect,  but  are  merely  treated  either  with 
vulgar  familiarity  or  with  open  derision. 
They  are  a  bad,  very  bad  imitation  of  the 


206       MENACE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

genuine  visitant  from  another  world,  and 
they  would  certainly  never  take  in  any  one 
who  had  ever  had  any  experience  whatever 
of  a  bond  fide  ghost. 

Lastly,  if  we  must  have  a  change — must 
have  something  different  in  the  place  of  our 
present  orthodox  Churches,  and  in  the  place 
of  Christianity — for  goodness'  sake  let  us 
look  around  for  something  that  will  be  both 
edifying  and  regenerating;  for  something 
that,  unlike  Spiritualism,  will  make  us  less 
selfish,  less  snobbish,  less  greedy,  less  arro- 
gant, and  less  hopelessly  self-satisfied;  in 
short,  let  us  look  for  something  that  will  de- 
velop what  few  virtues  we  may  happen  to 
possess,  and  not  tend — as  Spiritualism  most 
certainly  does  tend — to  accentuate  all  our 
old  vices  and,  what  is  undoubtedly  more 
serious,  to  create  new  ones. 


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